Azernews.Az

BAKU - A group of residents in an Azerbaijani region located on the frontline with Armenia on Wednesday conducted a march in support of the heroic Azerbaijani soldier killed in June in a frontline shooting with Armenian troops.

Mahammad Aslanov, head of the Aghdam district’s Youth Department, told Radio Liberty that the march had been initiated by the marchers themselves.

Participants headed toward the Bilasuvar district, where warrant officer Mubariz Ibrahimov was born, in 15 to 20 cars and a bus.

According to Aslanov, the marchers, holding the action under the "We all are Mubariz" slogan, demanded that Ibrahimov’s dead body, held by the Armenian side, be returned to his homeland.

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

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.

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 Karabakh 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.