In September 2020, Azerbaijan attacked the self-declared ethnic Armenian enclave in Nagorno-Karabakh. When the guns fell silent, Azerbaijan held several hundred Armenian POWs, only some of whom they released in accordance with Baku’s ceasefire obligations. Subsequently, some videos surfaced showing Azerbaijani forces summarily executing some POWs; other videos show torture.
Russia, the United States, and the European Parliament have all officially demanded Azerbaijan release the POWs.
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Azerbaijan responds in two ways. First, it argues that many prisoners are not POWs, but rather are held for other crimes. Second, in many cases, it simply denies holding Armenians who have been seen alive in Azerbaijani custody.
Azerbaijan is not the first country to seize and illegally hold POWs long after a ceasefire or armistice.
North Korea continued to hold many American POWs after the armistice, transferring many into Communist-Chinese custody. The fate of American POWs in Vietnam was, for decades, an impediment to the restoration of relations.
Perhaps the case most analogous to those of the Armenian POWs today was a brief border war between Eritrea and Djibouti in June 2008, as Eritrean forces sought to push into Djibouti in pursuit of a manufactured border claim backed neither by credible maps nor in the Permanent Court of Arbitration in The Hague. Retreating Eritrean troops seized several Djiboutians, both soldiers and civilians. Eritrean President Isaias Afwerki, whose police state resembles Azerbaijan minus the oil wealth, proceeded to deny holding any Djiboutians.
Enter Qatar, whose quiet diplomacy finally led Eritrea to release prisoners whose treatment while in custody had been atrocious.
Qatar has also been an intermediary in talks to negotiate the release of Western prisoners held by the Taliban, and has acted as an intermediary as Iran Special Envoy Rob Malley seeks to win the release of Iranian-American hostages held by the Islamic Republic.
Qatar can be a controversial country. I have long criticized it for its ties to groups like Hamas and the Taliban, and its sponsorship of various Muslim Brotherhood groups.
Realistically, however, those same relationships can make it a useful intermediary if done in a manner that neither rewards nor empowers terrorists. Azerbaijan is a satrapy of Turkey, a state with which Qatar has strong ties. Perhaps then, Qatari diplomats can turn their attention to the Caucasus.
They can make hostage release their brand and demonstrate that the religion of the hostages is immaterial to the humanitarian motivation of their involvement. At the same time, Qatari involvement can give Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev a face-saving way to do the right thing.
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It is time to bring the Armenian POWs home. Qatar could be the means to do it.
Michael Rubin (@mrubin1971) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner's Beltway Confidential. He is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/qatar-should-help-free-armenian-prisoners-of-war