Baku hands over missing Armenian citizen to Russian peacekeepers

14 January 2022 10:29 (UTC+04:00)

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By Vugar Khalilov

Azerbaijan has handed over back to Russian peacekeepers an Armenian citizen, who mistakenly crossed the state border in Lachin region, the Defence Ministry reported on January 13.

“It was determined that at about 1600 on January 13, Surik Matevosyan got lost on the territory of Lachin region of the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border and crossed the Azerbaijani border,” the ministry said.

It added that Matevosyan was handed over to Russian peacekeeping forces, which are temporarily deployed in Azerbaijan.

Overall, Azerbaijan returned 21 Armenian servicemen to Armenia on November 26, December 4 and December 19, 2021.

It should be noted that Armenia has failed to provide any information about more than 4,000 Azerbaijani citizens who went missing during the first Karabakh war in the early 1990s. At the same time, Armenia does not provide information about the Azerbaijani citizens who were in captivity during the first Karabakh war.

A Moscow-brokered ceasefire deal that Baku and Yerevan signed on November 10, 2020, brought an end to six weeks of fighting between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Azerbaijani army declared a victory against the Armenian troops. The signed agreement obliged Armenia to withdraw its troops from the Azerbaijani lands that it has occupied since the early 1990s.

The peace agreement stipulated the return of Azerbaijan's Armenian-occupied Kalbajar, Aghdam and Lachin regions. Before the signing of the deal, the Azerbaijani army had liberated around 300 villages, settlements, city centers, and historic Shusha city.