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Armenia still refuses to return body of Azerbaijani soldier

9 January 2017 12:30 (UTC+04:00)
Armenia still refuses to return body of Azerbaijani soldier

By Rashid Shirinov

For 12 days Armenia has been holding the body of Azerbaijani Armed Forces’ soldier Chingiz Gurbanov , who was killed during the prevention of the Armenian sabotage on December 29, 2016, and is refusing to return it to the Azerbaijani side for burial.

In late December, a reconnaissance group of the Armenian Armed Forces tried to violate the Azerbaijan-Armenia state border. The Armenian group found itself in the ambush of the Azerbaijani army while violating the borders.

During the fighting, Azerbaijani serviceman Chingiz Gurbanov went missing. Later, it turned out that he was killed by the Armenian Armed Forces.

Although almost two weeks have passed after the incident, the corresponding Armenian structures prefer to remain silent on this matter and show inhuman attitude.

“This proves once again that Armenia, by acting based on public opinion inside the country, is trying to gain time in order to obtain political dividends,” the Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported.

Azerbaijan’s State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing People together with the relevant government agencies continues necessary work for returning the body of Azerbaijani soldier, but the Armenian side still refuses to come to dialogue and return it, by this violating the requirements of the Geneva Convention.

The OSCE Minsk Group and other organizations, who constantly urge both sides of the conflict for peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, and who call on the conflicting parties to come to compromise, also keep their silence on the issue preferring to stay aside.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on 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. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

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Rashid Shirinov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @RashidShirinov

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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