Azerbaijan evacuates soldier’s body from neutral territory
By Abdul Kerimkhanov
The body of the missing Azerbaijani soldier Akif Abbasov has been evacuated from the neutral territory on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border, Head of the Public Relations Department of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Azerbaijan Office Ilaha Huseynova has said,
After the appeal and consent of the parties, ICRC participated as a neutral intermediary in the operation to evacuate the body of the dead soldier from the territory on the border on February 19.
Akif Abbasov, who is a soldier of the Azerbaijani Army, had gone missing some time ago. The soldier's body was discovered on the Azerbaijan-Armenia border a few days ago.
Earlier, on February 15, Azerbaijani Defense Ministry reported the killing of soldier Alasgarov on the line of contact of troops saying that the Armenian side bears the entire responsibility for the escalation of the situation in the front line.
Armenia committed the murder on the eve of the meeting between President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the Munich Security Conference.
Azerbaijan and Armenia are locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region, which along with seven other regions were occupied by Armenian forces in a war in the early 1990s. Around one million Azerbaijanis were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities that were started by the Armenian forces due to territorial claims against Baku.
A temporary cease-fire agreement was signed between the countries in 1994, however a final peace deal has not been reached yet. Peace negotiations mediated by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs have yielded no results to this date.
Since 1992, negotiations have been underway for a peaceful settlement of the conflict within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group. In 1993, the UN Security Council adopted four resolutions (822, 853, 874 and 884) on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. However, due to the unconstructiveness of Armenia, they still remain on paper.
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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94
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