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ICRC representatives visit Azerbaijani hostages

5 February 2016 16:43 (UTC+04:00)
ICRC representatives visit Azerbaijani hostages

By Laman Sadigova

Representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) have recently visited Azerbaijani hostages Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev, who were taken by Armenian militaries in the occupied Kalbajar district of Azerbaijan.

The ICRC representatives visited Azerbaijani hostages to observe their treatment and conditions of detention as well as to help to ensure that the hostages are able to maintain contact with their families.

During an operation conducted in the Shaplar village of Azerbaijan’s occupied Kalbajar district on July 11, 2014, Armenian forces killed an Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov, and detained Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov while they were attempting to visit the graves of their relatives.

Azerbaijani hostages Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev have been judged illegally by the unrecognized courts of a separatist regime in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh. Following an expedited “judicial process" in December 2015, Asgarov was sentenced to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years.

Although many international organizations, as well as Azerbaijan, urged Armenia to start peaceful negotiations on this issue and to free the hostages, the Armenian side remained deaf. The Armenian side ignoring all calls and violating the international rules and norms was subjecting the hostages to various tortures.

Armenia occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions, after laying territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor that caused a brutal war in the early 1990s. Long-standing efforts by U.S, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, more than 4,000 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

The UN Security Council has passed four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.

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Follow Laman Sadigova on Twitter: @s_laman93

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