Azernews.Az

BAKU - Azerbaijan’s hardline Garabagh Liberation Organization (GLO) protested outside the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Baku office on Wednesday over the stalling repatriation of the body of the Azerbaijani soldier who was killed during a skirmish with Armenian troops in June.
The protesters demanded that the ICRC halt its operation in Azerbaijan due to what they believe is its having failed to facilitate the handover of the soldier’s corpse. They symbolically put a lock on the committee office’s gate and threw away the key.
The GLO members continued the protest outside the Defense Ministry, chanting slogans saying "The hero’s corpse must be returned in battles". Two Ministry officials came out to inform the protesters about the work being done to repatriate the killed Azerbaijani serviceman. The pickets expressed discontent with "the lack of progress", demanding that more vigorous action be taken to arrange the handover.
Mubariz Ibrahimov single-handedly shot four Armenian soldiers after they launched an offensive on Azerbaijan's positions early on June 19 in the Armenia-occupied Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh region before he was killed. His dead body has not been returned to this day.
The Armenian government claimed earlier that due to the alleged absence of a formal appeal from Azerbaijan, it was not taking any action to repatriate Ibrahimov’s body. Further, Yerevan said in response to a query from the ICRC, which facilitates the handover of POWs, that the soldier’s corpse is neither in Armenia nor in Nagorno Garabagh.
Armenia and Azerbaijan waged a war over the mountainous region of Nagorno Garabagh in the early 1990s, which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about one million Azerbaijanis. Armenian troops have been occupying over 20% of Azerbaijan’s territory since then. The ceasefire accord was signed in 1994, but peace talks, mediated by the U.S., Russia and France, have been fruitless so far, and sporadic clashes on the frontline continue.