Azernews.Az

BAKU - The Armenians have posted online photos of the Azerbaijani soldier killed in June in a frontline shooting with Armenian troops whose dead body has yet to be repatriated.

The profile on popular social networking website odnoklassniki.ru insulting Azerbaijanis and Turks was created by a user called Tehler Yan and includes four photos of the dead serviceman Mubariz Ibrahimov.

The pictures show Ibrahimov’s face and a wound in the side of his back. One of the photos shows the soldier lying on a barrow with his hands tied.

Warrant officer Ibrahimov displayed outstanding heroism during the clashes on the contact line between Armenian and Azerbaijani troops on June 18-19, single-handedly killing four Armenian soldiers and wounding four others. His corpse has not been returned to this day.

The Armenian leadership claimed while responding to a query of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), which facilitates the handover of POWs, that the serviceman’s dead body is neither in Armenia nor in Azerbaijan’s occupied Upper (Nagorno) Karabakh region.

President Ilham Aliyev has conferred Azerbaijani National Hero Award to the soldier for his exemplary bravery and outstanding service.

The Azerbaijan Ministry of Defense on Tuesday condemned the posting of Ibrahimov’s photos on the internet. Teymur Abdullayev, the ministry’s deputy spokesman, said the Armenians "exposed themselves" by posting the pictures.

"We have made repeated statements -- and insistently -- about the Armenians’ holding the corpse of National Hero, war victim Mubariz Ibrahimov. However, over the past month and a half since his death, the Armenian side continued to insist that they do not have the dead body and even did not refrain from issuing false response to international organizations’ queries. On August 2, it was the Armenians who spread photos they claim are Mubariz Ibrahimov’s on the internet. By doing so, the Armenians once again demonstrated that they do not abide by the norms of international law and showed their hypocrisy."

The Azerbaijan Defense Ministry said it would continue doing its utmost to achieve repatriation of the serviceman’s body. It added that international groups would tackle the photos issue and step up their scrutiny.

The ICRC’s Baku office has appealed to the organization’s head office and its representation in Armenia over the matter, according to Ilaha Huseynova, a spokesperson for the ICRC’s Baku office.

"The International Committee of the Red Cross is consistently working with regard to Mubariz Ibrahimov. The public will be informed as soon as progress is made."

Azerbaijan has been facing a conflict with Armenia that began in 1988 on Armenian territorial claims. Since the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan including the Nagorno Garabagh region and its seven surrounding districts, despite four standing UN resolutions on unconditional pullout of Armenian troops and condemnation by a number of other international organizations.