Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Georgia's Foreign Ministry is holding talks with Armenia on returning a captured ethnic Azerbaijani Georgian citizen, the ministry told the Baku-based Trend news agency on August 19.

"At this stage the negotiations with Yerevan are being conducted by the Georgian Foreign Ministry," an official representative of the Interior Ministry said.

According to the information, Allahverdi Pelengov, a resident of Burma village in the Sadakhlo municipality in eastern Georgia, was captured along with his two Armenian acquaintances in the neutral zone of the Georgian-Armenian border. From there he was transferred to Yerevan and his acquaintances were released.

The Georgian police took measures after an inquiry from the kidnapped person's family. The police took testimony of Pelengov's wife, his son and eyewitnesses.

According to the Georgian Interior Ministry, at this stage it turned out that Pelengov was arrested for illegally crossing the Armenian border.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry thus far has not commented on the negotiations.

Evidently, the Armenian invaders commit provocative acts not only against Azerbaijani citizens, but also the citizens of other countries with Azerbaijani ethnicity.

In July, a soldier of the Azerbaijani army was captured by the Armenian armed forces after he got lost on the contact line between Azerbaijani and Armenian troops near Azerbaijan's Tovuz region.

Azerbaijan's State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons registered 4,033 people as missing, including 46 children, 255 women, and 353 elderly, as of July 1.

According to the Commission, there are specific facts about 877 people, including 22 children, 99 women and 133 elderly, that they were captured and are in the occupied territories, but Armenia does not recognize the fact.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenian territorial claims. Since the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, 1,402 have been released from Armenian captivity.

A precarious ceasefire between Azerbaijan and Armenia was reached after a lengthy war that displaced over a million Azerbaijanis and has been in place between the two South Caucasus countries since 1994. Since the hostilities, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The UN Security Council has adopted four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal from the Azerbaijani territory, but they have not been enforced to this day.