ARMENIAN MILITARY SAYS HUNDREDS STILL KEPT IN AZERI CAPTIVITY
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 11 2006

Hundreds of Armenian prisoners of war and civilians remain in
Azerbaijani captivity nearly twelve years after the end of large-scale
fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh, a senior Armenian Defense Ministry
official claimed on Tuesday.

“We have information that they are used as slave labor in Azerbaijan,”
Colonel Ashot Balian, a member of a ministry commission dealing
missing Armenian soldiers and civilian hostages, told RFE/RL.

“The Azerbaijani authorities keep moving them around and leaving no
traces of them.”

“I therefore can’t name any specific locations, but we are convinced
that they are in Azerbaijan. Some are even said to have been relocated
to Turkey,” he said. “We still hope that our missing sons will return
to their families one day.”

The Azerbaijani authorities have denied holding any Armenian prisoners
in the past and allege, for their part, that thousands of missing
Azerbaijani soldiers and civilians are being held in Armenia and
Nagorno-Karabakh.

Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian dismissed such claims as “unfounded”
during a meeting on Friday with the visiting chairman of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), Jacob Kellenberger.

Sarkisian said he hopes ICRC will certify “the absence of hostages
in Armenia” in its future reports.

The Red Cross, which has offices in both Baku and Yerevan, is the main
international institution that arranges Armenian-Azerbaijani prisoner
exchanges and repatriations. Both conflicting armies continue to turn
to it for assistance after reporting soldier disappearances.