YEREVAN, October 6. /TASS/. One Armenian citizen held by Azerbaijan returned to his home country, Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Suren Papikyan told lawmakers Wednesday.
"At this very moment, one POW is returning to – or actually already is on – Armenian territory. This is Artur Davidyan, born in 1989, who crossed the [Nagorno-Karabakh] border on August 22, 2021," Papikyan said, according to a livestream on YouTube.
The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated on September 27, 2020, with hostilities sparking at the disputed territory. On November 9, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a joint statement on complete cessation of hostilities. According to the document, Armenia and Azerbaijan stopped at their actual positions at the moment, a number of districts went under Baku’s control, and Russian peacekeeping forces were deployed along the contact line and the so-called Lachin corridor.