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ICRC visits Azerbaijani hostages

3 July 2015 17:19 (UTC+04:00)
ICRC visits Azerbaijani hostages

By Sara Rajabova

The International Committee of the Red Cross has visited two ethnic Azerbaijanis who were illegally taken hostage in the occupied territories last year.

Armenian media reported that ICRC representatives in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh visited Azerbaijani detainees once again and provided them with the opportunity to exchange family news.

Under its mandate, the ICRC will continue its visits to the detainees on a regular basis in order to monitor treatment and conditions and help to ensure that they are able to maintain contact with their families, according to Armenian media.

Armenian special forces killed Azerbaijani citizen Hasan Hasanov and took Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov hostage in the Shaplar village in the occupied Kalbajar region in July 2014, while they were visiting the graves of their relatives. Following an expedited “judicial process," Dilgam Asgarov was sentenced to life imprisonment, and Shahbaz Guliyev to 22 years in prison.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in a conflict that emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by US, Russian, and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories.

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Sara Rajabova is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @SaraRajabova

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