EP rapporteurs on Armenia, Azerbaijan urge Baku to release all POWs

PanARMENIAN.Net - The European Parliament's standing rapporteurs on Armenian and Azerbaijan, MEPs Andrey Kovatchev and Željana Zovko have called on Baku to release all the Armenian prisoners of war captured during or after the recent hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Their appeal was made public in a joint statement they penned with the Chair of the Delegation for relations with the South Caucasus, MEP Marina Kaljurand, published on Tuesday, February 2.

While the MEPs said they applauded the fact that the situation has stabilized in the region, they maintained that a lot more was necessary to achieve much-needed reconciliation.

"Negotiations on a lasting settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and on the region’s future legal status remain as indispensable as ever. We call on both parties to reaffirm clearly and publicly their willingness to re-engage in the process led by the Minsk Group Co-Chairs and founded on the group’s Basic Principles that they themselves agreed to, reflecting the Helsinki Final Act principles of non-use of force, territorial integrity, and the equal rights and self-determination of peoples," the statement reads.

"At a time of a fresh momentum brought about by the new U.S. administration, we firmly reiterate the European Parliament’s - and, indeed, the European Union’s - continued support to this process and these principles. The complete implementation of the ceasefire agreement is a necessary first step and it is regrettable that the exchange of prisoners of war has not been carried out fully yet."

"We welcome last week’s (late January -Ed.) release of several of the Armenian servicemen captured after the end of hostilities and appeal to Azerbaijan to release the rest, so that trust can be rebuilt. We also urge the parties to ensure fully unhindered access of international organizations for the purposes of humanitarian assistance and the protection of cultural heritage. These issues underline even more the need for renewed multilateral efforts to support finding a lasting solution to the conflict,” the MEPs added.

Several dozen Armenian POWs returned from Azerbaijan in mid-December, although Armenian officials said many more people were being held in Baku. Dozens of others, both servicemen and civilians, have been captured after the completion of military hostilities. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has said in one of his speeches that the newly detained persons are not prisoners of war but “terrorists”. Human rights lawyer Siranush Sahakyan has said, meanwhile, that at least 120 Armenian prisoners of war are being held in Azerbaijan. Sahakyan represents the rights of some of the Karabakh POWs before the European Court of Human Rights. The lawyer said there is enough evidence proving the capture of said persons, which the Armenian side will submit to international agencies and courts.