Baku condemns burning of Azerbaijani soldier's body by Armenian forces

30 December 2020 12:00 (UTC+04:00)

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By Vafa Ismayilova

The Azerbaijani ombudsman office has condemned the burning of an Azerbaijani solder's body by Armenian armed groups and described it as a gross violation of the Geneva Conventions which Armenia had joined.

The office told local media on December 29 that the video of the mentioned action was spread on social networking platforms and other sources.

“We think that the Armenian military burned the body of an Azerbaijani soldier to hide the traces of inhumane treatment and actions towards the body. By joining the Third Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War, Armenia has undertaken to always treat prisoners of war humanely,” the office said.

“At the same time, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, the deceased must be buried in accordance with the religious traditions. In this regard, we firmly condemn this criminal act and call on international organizations not to turn a blind eye to such inhumane actions, which are a gross violation of human rights," the office said.

On December 28, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor-General's Office urged Armenia to punish culprits responsible for insulting the bodies of the Azerbaijani servicemen and civilians killed in the 44-day Karabakh war, and inhumanely treating POWs. The Prosecutor-General's Office also urged an open and fair investigation into the abovemetioned cases.

On November 10, 2020 Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia signed a trilateral peace agreement to end the Nagorno-Karabakh war that started on September 27, 2020.

The peace agreement ended the 30-year-old conflict between Baku and Yerevan over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh region that along with the seven adjacent districts came under the occupation of Armenian armed forces in the war in the early 1990s. For about three decades, Armenia failed to implement the UN Security Council resolutions demanding the withdrawal of the Armenian troops, which was the main obstacle to the resolution of the conflict.