Number of hostages released during Karabakh conflict revealed
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
Azerbaijan's State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons has registered 13 people as missing in recent months.
These Azerbaijani citizens went missing in the course of intensive military operations in 1992-1993. To this day, 3,888 people are registered with the State Commission as missing.
Upon completion of work to clarify the list of persons missing as a result of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the State Commission is working to clarify the list of released hostages and persons held captive.
The number of hostages released so far is 1,480 people.
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.
As a result of Armenia's armed invasion into Azerbaijan's legal territory, the two neighboring countries have remained locked in a bitter territorial dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Armenia-backed separatists seized from Azerbaijan in a bloody war in the early 1990s.
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.
Despite Baku's best efforts, peace in the occupied lands remains a mirage in the distance as Armenia refuses to comply with international law.
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