Karabakh human rights activist: “There are no Azerbaijani prisoners of war in Nagorno Karabakh”
00:00, August 4, 2006 | The Rights of Conflict Victims
“The Azerbaijani authorities have been exaggerating the subject of Azerbaijani prisoners of war in Karabakh captivity to conceal the true number of its Army losses in the war imposed upon Nagorno Karabakh.
Instead of cooperating with Armenian and Azerbaijani NGOs in solving this humanitarian problem, Baku is politicizing it,” Karen Ohanjanyan, head of Helsinki Initiative ’92 organization, commenting on a report by TURAN news agency, which says that allegedly “Azerbaijani prisoners of war are being exploited in tunnels of gold mines in Kelbajar District.”
“Since May 12, 1995, there has been no prisoners of war and hostages in Nagorno Karabakh. All of them were extradited to Azerbaijan. Today there are only separate cases of Azerbaijani servicemen becoming prisoners of war because of their attempts to carry out subversive activity, however, Nagorno Karabakh authorities immediately inform Stepanakert Office of the International Red Cross Committee and in two or three months these prisoners are extradited to the Azeri side with the Red Cross assistance,” Karen Ohanjanyan stressed.
It is worth mentioning, recently, a regional conference on issues of missing people with participation of Armenian, Azerbaijani, Georgian and Nagorno Karabakh representatives initiated in the framework of The Yellow Tulips Project with support of The Interchurch Peace Council (the Netherlands) was held in the Nagorno Karabakh capital, Stepanakert. The reporters spoke on carious aspects of the missing people problem, gave a brief on history of cooperation of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly in South Caucasus, role of mass media in solving the problems of missing, attitudes of the governmental institutions to the problem of missing.
Permanent news address: www.regnum.ru/english/683535.html
14:30 08/03/2006