Azerbaijan, Baku, May 1 / Trend, K.Zarbaliyeva /
Azerbaijan's State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons made a clarification on the transfer of three Armenian POWs to a third country.
In their statement to the press, the commission said that three Armenian POWs kept in Azerbaijan said they did not want to return home and would prefer to be sent to a third country, head of the State Commission's working group Firudin Sadigov told Trend on Tuesday.
"Since they are not considered our contingent, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees will deal with this issue," Sadigov said.
Spokesman of Azerbaijani Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees Elsever Agayev, in turn, told Trend that although the issue of transfer of POWs to a third country is under the jurisdiction of the Commissioner, its staff does not have the authority to disclose any information about individuals which is regarded as confidential.
It should be noted that Armenian media outlets reported the transfer of three POWs by Azerbaijan to a third country. At present, five civilians who are members of an Armenian family are being kept in Azerbaijan. There is one Azerbaijani POW in Armenia.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 per cent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.