Armenia has always carried out the Astrakhan Declaration regarding the exchange of prisoners of war and the return of the bodies of killed servicemen, Armenia’s foreign minister Edward Nalbandian said during a joint press conference with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov in Moscow.
Nalbandian finds it bizarre for Azerbaijan to talk about humanitarianism after decapitating Armenian soldier
STEPANAKERT, FEBRUARY 22, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: “Recently Armenia returned the body of an Azerbaijani saboteur, who had killed three servicemen in the territory of Armenia. The Azerbaijani side insisted he wasn’t a saboteur; it was turning the situation upside down regarding the sabotage attempt of the last year’s end. However, when the body was returned, the saboteur was named a national hero by the special order of the Azerbaijani president. The formulation was very interesting, it said: “For successfully carrying out the assignment”. This means they tasked him to carry out sabotage and named him a national hero for that. Moreover, prior to reaching an agreement on returning the body, the Azerbaijani side was announcing that Armenia must return the body as a humanitarian act”, Nalbandian said.
With surprise he stresses as to what humanitarian act they were talking about, when Azerbaijan was interrogating and violently treating an Armenian shepherd on camera, when the latter appeared on their side. As a result of all this, he was killed, and presented it as suicide.
“In another case they killed again, announced he had heart failure. And during the April events, they were not only simply subjecting to violence the servicemen who had appeared on their side, but were simply cutting off their heads and displaying them in villages and cities. And the person who was displaying the severed head, was afterwards rewarded by the Azerbaijani president, and it was also reported on the official website of the president”, Nalbandian said, reminding also the incident when Azerbaijan downed an Armenian helicopter, and didn’t allow the evacuation of the chopper’s crew, who might have been still alive, by keeping the crash site under fire for several days.
Nalbandian said that agreements were reached in Vienna, St. Petersburg, Astrakhan, Sochi, which were afterwards refused by Azerbaijan.
“Azerbaijan is signing those agreements, and then takes a step back. We can’t get used to it, the international community also, however there is no alternative. We will continue to take efforts with the co-chairs, aimed at the exclusively peaceful settlement of the conflict and first of all creating conditions for advancing the negotiations process”, Nalbandian said.
