Azerbaijan says ready to discuss release of Armenian hostage

PanARMENIAN.Net - Chief of Azerbaijan’s State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing People Ismayil Akhundov said Baku is ready to start negotiations on the release of two Azeri citizen imprisoned in Karabakh and one Armenian citizen convicted in Azerbaijan “in the shortest period.”

In late December, a court in Nagorno Karabakh sentenced one Azerbaijani man to life imprisonment and another to 22 years in prison on charges stemming from the murder of an Armenian teenager which led to their high-profile arrests in July. In a verdict condemned by Azerbaijan’s government, Dilgam Askerov and Shahbaz Quliyev were convicted of illegal border crossing and arms possession, espionage and kidnapping. Askerov, who was jailed for life, was also found guilty of killing Smbat Tsakanian, a 17-year-old Armenian resident of the Kelbajar district sandwiched between Armenia and Karabakh.

A former Armenian serviceman, Arsen Baghdasaryan who crossed the border in December, 2014, was sentenced to 15 years of imprisonment in Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan has regularly attempted to swap Askerov and Quliyev with an Armenian hostage (either Baghdasaryan, or another captive Hakob Injighulyan, or even the body of a civilian), but Karabakh’s chief prosecutor has on multiple occasions ruled out Askerov and Quliyev’s exchange.