Baku, Azerbaijan, Dec. 10
By Elchin Mehdiyev - Trend:
During intensive military operations, relatives of prisoners of war, as well as hostages and missing persons - a certain part of Azerbaijani citizens, without coordinating their steps with the relevant authorities, headed to Georgia, where they held informal meetings with Armenians, said Eldar Samadov, deputy head of the Working Group of Azerbaijan’s State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons.
He was speaking at a conference titled "Criminal acts of Armenians against the Azerbaijani people and their tangible and cultural monuments in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict" held in Baku Dec. 10, Trend reports.
The result of such steps was tragic, he said, adding that the relatives of the prisoners of war were also taken hostage.
“This is very regrettable,” he noted. “We always warn citizens that they should never take any steps that aren’t coordinated with state bodies.”
During an operation in July 2014 in the Shaplar village of Azerbaijani Kalbajar district, occupied by Armenia, the Armenian special forces killed an Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov, and took hostage two other Azerbaijanis, Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov. A "criminal case" was initiated against them. Afterwards, a "court" sentenced Asgarov to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years in prison.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.