BAKU, Azerbaijan, Feb. 28
Trend:
There cannot be a prisoner of war 20 days after the war. We returned them all the prisoners of war we had. In fact, we returned them earlier than they returned ours. These people do not fall into this category. These are terrorists and saboteurs, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said giving a press conference for local and foreign media representatives, Trend reports.
“After the hostilities ended, a detachment of more than 60 people was dispatched from Armenia, from Shirak region, from the city of Gyumri and surrounding regions in the last 10 days of November. It is not clear how, but it made its way into the territories controlled by the Azerbaijani army through the Lachin corridor. As you know, after the end of hostilities, on 10 November, the peacekeeping troops of the Russian Federation published maps showing the areas of responsibility of the peacekeepers. These maps are always on the web site. So after the end of hostilities, we discovered that there were Armenian armed formations in the deep rear. First, we received information that they had lost their way, that they could not get out of the encirclement, and for some time the Azerbaijani servicemen, together with the peacekeeping mission, thinking that they were lost, tried to help these people and take them back. But it turned out that this was not the case. It turned out that it was a sabotage group that carried out attacks both on our military personnel and on civilians. As a result of their acts of sabotage and terrorist attacks, four of our servicemen and one civilian was killed. He was a representative of a mobile operator who was ambushed while traveling to the city of Shusha. Several people were also wounded,” Azerbaijani president said.
“Of course, we carried out a counter-terrorist operation, as a result of which several terrorists were completely neutralized and more than 60 were captured. When some people try to describe them as prisoners of war today, I think they are deliberately distorting the essence of the issue. There cannot be a prisoner of war 20 days after the war. We returned them all the prisoners of war we had. In fact, we returned them earlier than they returned ours. These people do not fall into this category. These are terrorists and saboteurs. So any speculation on the part of Armenia or some countries is inappropriate,” the head of state said.