STATE COMMISSION ON POWS, HOSTAGES AND MISSING PERSONS EXPRESSES ATTITUDE TO BIASED AND ONE-SIDED MEDIA REPORTS

AzerTag, Azerbaijan
June 19 2006

Recently, there have been several biased and one-sided media reports
commenting on the June 7-9, 2006 visit to Azerbaijan by Leo Platvoet,
the rapporteur of the PACE Committee on Migration, Refugees and
Population, according to the State Commission of the Azerbaijan
Republic on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons.

The reports blame the rapporteur for his alleged double-standard
approach to the problem of missing persons, refusal to meet with
their families and accept related materials and so on.

Given the mentioned above, the State Commission once again informs
the public that PACE rapporteur Leo Platvoet met on June 8, 2006 with
parents and relatives of the missing persons, heard them all out, and
expressed his opinion on each case. During the 5-hour meeting over
40 interested persons suggested to the rapporteur that Armenia and
separatist regime of Nagorno-Karabakh withhold the information about
fates of their children, and asked PACE to help in search for them.

In response, Mr. Platvoet described the problem as very painful and
said it was the reason why the decision to prepare a special report
on the problem was made. He noted as well that the goal of the PACE
mission should be gotten right. "Our major goal is to determine the
scale of the problem, get acquainted with positions of the sides and
bring them together to resolve this humanitarian problem," he said.

The State Committee considers that the PACE rapporteur was acting in
the framework of the mission he was charged with, and approached the
problem just in this context. To demand from him some out-of-mission
activities is simply far from being logical, and misunderstanding of
this is a result of inexperience.

At the meeting, Firudin Sadigov, Head of the working group at the
State Commission on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons provided its
participants with detailed information about the accomplishment
his group has gained so far and problems it comes across in its
work. He stressed the necessity for the opposite side to take real and
constructive steps to obtain positive results. Mr. Sadigov advised
that since the beginning of the conflict, 1381 prisoners of war and
hostages have been released, while the fates of 783 taken captive and
hostage are still unknown as a result of inhumane approach by the
opposite side. He added the documents related to the persons taken
prisoners and hostages during intensive military operations were
systemized and placed on the State Commission’s official website in
2000. Mr. Sadigov also expressed regret at the fact that activity of
the related structure in Armenia was badly organized.

He let the meeting participants know that the lists of 783 of 4604
registered POWs and hostages and related documents, photo and video
materials reflecting vandal actions – including destruction of
historical and cultural monuments, and administrative buildings in
Shusha, Agdam and Khojaly – committed by Armenians in the occupied
lands of Azerbaijan, as well as those confirming illegal settling
ethnic Armenians in these territories, had been handed over to the
PACE mission for it to use them in the final report.

These materials have also been stored on four CDs. Member of
PACE officially accepted them to go through. Apart from that, the
Commission states it had sent necessary materials to PACE even before
the mission’s visit to Azerbaijan.

The information on the meeting held was spread by the State Commission
of the Azerbaijan Republic on POWs, Hostages and Missing Persons
through mass media, as well as placed on its official website.