State body on POWs says Armenian captive could be sent home
By Sara Rajabova
The State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons of Azerbaijan sees no problem in returning an Armenian soldier who was captured while trying to cross the part of the troops' contact line controlled by the Azerbaijani army, secretary of the Commission Shahin Sailov told the local media on August 21.
According to Sailov, currently the reasons of the serviceman's crossing the contact line are being clarified. He said that the captive can be handed over to Armenia or to a third country only after it is clarified why he was crossing the Line of Contact.
"'Yesterday, representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) met with Akop Injigulyan. This issue was probably discussed during the meeting with the captive," Sailov said.
According to Sailov, everything depends on the captive's wish, and if he wants to return to Armenia he will be repatriated, and the State Commission does not see a problem in this regard.
On August 20, ICRC Baku Office spokesperson Ilaha Huseynova told media that the ICRC representatives had met with the Armenian soldier.
According to Huseynova, the captive was informed about his family and in turn, his family will receive information about him.
Late on August 7, Akop Injigulyan crossed the part of the contact line controlled by the Azerbaijani army in the direction of the frontline in Azerbaijan's Aghdam region.
Earlier, in March, the Azerbaijani armed forces detained two Armenian citizens crossing the Line of Contact and handed over the detainees to the state commission on POWs.
For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by US, Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories.