Interfax - Russia & CIS Military Newswire
November 1, 2018 Thursday 7:11 PM MSK


Karabakh refuses to swap prisoners with Azerbaijan

YEREVAN. Nov 1

Azerbaijan's offer of an all-for-all exchange of prisoners and
captives with Nagorno-Karabakh is incommensurate, the breakaway
republic said.

"Stepanakert received no such offer," Karabakh president's press
secretary David Babayan told Interfax on Thursday.

"As for Guliyev and Asgarov, these people are criminals, murderers,
while those being held on the Azeri side are innocent civilians whom
Baku must free in accordance with international norms," Babayan said.

"How can one compare a murderer, terrorist to an innocent person? Of
course, this cannot be considered on the same level," Babayan said,
noting that from the legal standpoint, "these people are murderers
sentenced to punishment for committing a crime."

"To make such a proposal to exchange them for innocent people is
simply blackmail," Babayan said.

An informed source told Interfax earlier that Baku had offered Yerevan
to swap their prisoners and captives under the "all for all"
prisoners.

Currently three Armenian citizens are imprisoned in Azerbaijan: Arsen
Bagdasaryan, Karen Kazaryan and Zaven Karapetyan. Baku sees them as
saboteurs and war criminals.

Karabakh has three Azerbaijanis in prison. Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam
Asgarov, who is a Russian citizen, are serving a 22-year sentence and
a life, respectively, for killing a Karabakh child, infiltrating
Karabakh, and spying. The third one is Elnur Huseynzade.

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