Discussions on Armenian prisoners of war has started at political groups of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE), member of the Armenian delegation Naira Zohrabyan informs.

According to her, heated debates were held at the European Conservatives and Reformist Group.  

“I presented irrefutable facts confirmed by the Red Cross, the European Court of Human Rights on the number of Armenian prisoners of war, I presented facts on the torture of Armenian POWs, and spoke about international law, the international conventions according to which Azerbaijan is obliged to return Armenian prisoners of war without preconditions,” Zohrabyan said in a Facebook post.

The Armenian MP stressed that Azerbaijan’s “arguments” claiming that those taken prisoner after November 10 are not prisoners of war is a shameless lie, a brazen lie violating international law, and called on the Council of Europe to use all its levers for the release of Armenian POWs.

“Naturally, the members of the Azerbaijani delegation, distorting all the norms of international law, reiterated that those captured after November 10 are not prisoners of war and a legal-judicial process must still take place against them. Without any serious counter-argument, they began to say that their territories had been “occupied” and “destroyed” for the past 30 years,” Zohrabyan added.

The main discussion on the issue of POWs will take place on Tuesday, in the second half of the day.