Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

Armenia has finally returned the dead body of an Azerbaijani hostage, who was killed and buried in Azerbaijan's occupied Kalbajar region by Armenian armed forces three months ago.

Body of the 36-year-old Hasan Hasanov was returned to Azerbaijan on October 2, the Azerbaijan State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons told Trend news agency.

Despite numerous calls by Azerbaijan for negotiation on hostages' exchange, the Armenian side repeatedly refused to do so. However, Azerbaijan have handed over the Armenian citizens, who illegally crossed the Armenian-Azerbaijani contact line, to their or a third country.

The State Commission said the body of Hasanov was returned due to effective negotiations conducted by the commission with the relevant agencies.

The return of the body was carried out by the State Commission and the Azerbaijan Defense Ministry through the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Hasanov was one of the three hostages captured by the Armenian armed forces while visiting the graves of their relatives.

Earlier, Armenian media reported that during an operation carried out on July 11 by Armenian Special Forces in the village of Shaplar of the occupied Kelbajar region, Azerbaijani citizen Hasanov was killed, while Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Askerov were taken hostage.

Armenian authorities haven't released yet any details about the fate of two other Azerbaijani citizens detained by Armenian armed forces in the occupied Kalbajar region despite repeated calls by Azerbaijan and the international organizations. Previously, Armenian media reported that a criminal case was filed against the Azerbaijani hostages.

Armenia violated the international legal norms by taking hostage the Azerbaijani civilians as they didn't violate any border law between Armenia and Azerbaijan. They were on their own native Kalbajar region.

Azerbaijani MP Ganira Pashayeva has recently raised the issue of capturing Azerbaijani citizens at a plenary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE).

Pashayeva stressed that Hasanov was brutally killed, while other two hostages, who subjected to torture, are still in Armenian captivity.

She went on to note that a policy of ethnic cleansing is pressed ahead by Armenian officials. According to her, a growing intolerance, hatred and racism is felt in Armenia's education system, the speeches of politicians and the media.

She noted that over the past years, Armenia has occupied Azerbaijani lands, killed more than 20,000 Azerbaijanis and committed a genocide in Khojaly, killing 613 people and disabling 1,000 others in the region.

The precarious cease-fire 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.

As a result of the military aggression of Armenia, over 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed, 4,866 are reported missing and almost 100,000 were injured, and 50,000 were disabled.

Pashayeva said a lot of Armenians still live in Azerbaijan as its citizens, whilst there not a single Azerbaijani living in Armenia.