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    Categories: 2021

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 06/13/2021

                                        Sunday, 

15 Armenian POWs Freed By Azerbaijan


Azerbaijan -- Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov meets with acting US 
Assistant Secretary of State Philip Reeker, Baku, June 9, 2021

In a deal brokered by the United States and Georgia, Azerbaijan set free 15 
Armenian prisoners of war on Saturday after receiving more information from 
Armenia about minefields around Nagorno-Karabakh.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian announced their release as he campaigned 
for snap parliamentary elections slated for June 20.

Pashinian’s press secretary, Mane Gevorgian, said that the POWs were repatriated 
to Armenia via Georgia.

“The process took place with U.S. and Georgian mediation, for which the 
government of Armenia thanks the U.S. administration and the Georgian 
government,” Gevorgian wrote on Facebook.

Azerbaijan said it freed the POWs in exchange for an Armenian military map 
detailing the location of nearly 100,000 land mines in the Aghdam district east 
of Nagorno-Karabakh which was handed back to Baku under the terms of a 
Russian-brokered agreement that stopped last year’s Armenian-Azerbaijani war.

“The 15 Armenian captives were turned over on the Azerbaijani-Georgian border 
with the participation of Georgian representatives,” the Azerbaijani Foreign 
Ministry said in a statement.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hailed their release. “We also welcome 
Armenia’s decision to provide Azerbaijan with important information that will 
facilitate humanitarian demining and avoid future casualties,” he said in a 
statement.

“The United States is pleased to support these steps and hopes they will lay the 
groundwork for additional cooperation. We continue to call for the return of all 
detainees and stand ready to assist the countries of the region in their efforts 
to continue cooperation and resolve outstanding issues between them,” added 
Blinken.

The Georgian government reported, meanwhile, that Prime Minister Irakli 
Gharibashvili personally helped to arrange the deal by negotiating with 
Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

The Armenian-Azerbaijani agreement brokered by Russian President Vladimir Putin 
last November calls for the unconditional release of all prisoners held by the 
conflicting sides.

Russian peacekeepers deployed in Karabakh after the six-week war have arranged 
several prisoner swaps in recent months. No Azerbaijani prisoners are known to 
be held in Armenia or Karabakh at present.

A total of 88 Armenian prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians have been freed to 
date. More than 100 others are believed to remain in Azerbaijani captivity. 
Yerevan regularly demands their immediate release.

Baku says that they are not covered by the truce agreement because they were 
captured after it took effect on November 10. Azerbaijani officials have branded 
the remaining Armenian detainees as “terrorists.”

At least 16 of them are facing what the Armenian Foreign Ministry condemned last 
week as “trumped-up criminal charges.”

“It is evident that Azerbaijan is using the captured people as political 
hostages and tools to pursue other goals,” the ministry said in a June 4 
statement. It accused Baku of concealing “the real number of prisoners” and 
“denying the captivity of dozens of Armenian servicemen and civilians.”


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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Hovsep Chakrian: