Azernews.Az

BAKU – 4,049 citizens of Azerbaijan remain missing as a result of the country’s long-standing conflict with Armenia over Nagorno Karabakh, the Azerbaijani government estimates.

Firudin Sadygov, the head of a relevant taskforce at the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons, told a meeting Wednesday that a scrutiny conducted last year revealed that ten people registered as missing persons are currently in the Armenia-occupied territories and are likely to have been captured by Armenian armed forces.

1,399 people released from captivity have been registered by the State Commission so far.

One Azerbaijani POW and one hostage, as well as the bodies of two servicemen and two civilians killed in Armenian attacks were repatriated last year. Azerbaijan handed over the corpses of two people to Armenia.

In late October 2010, the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia signed an agreement to swap prisoners of war and the bodies of soldiers after talks in Astrakhan held with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s mediation.

Six Armenian servicemen, a family of five people and one civilian are currently held in Azerbaijan. So far, only one of them has expressed a wish to go home, according to the Azerbaijani commission on prisoners.

Two Azerbaijani servicemen are presently in Armenian captivity.

The two South Caucasus republics have been locked in conflict for two decades. 20 percent of Azerbaijan’s territory has been under Armenian occupation since the two countries signed a precarious cease-fire in 1994 following a lengthy war.