Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan says he is confident that international organizations spare no effort to return the Armenian military officer held captive in Azerbaijan back home.
Defense Minister says int’l organizations “spare no effort” to return captive Armenian serviceman
STEPANAKERT, AUGUST 28, ARTSAKHPRESS-ARMENPRESS: “We are sure that both the OSCE and the International [Committee ] of the Red Cross, relevant organizations of the UN spare no effort in order for the serviceman to be returned,” Tonoyan told reporters on August 28 in parliament.
“Our preliminary assessment is that our serviceman got lost and appeared in the adversary’s side. We must yet determine if he was possibly kidnapped or in whatever other conditions he appeared there. Depending on this we will work in different formats in different international organizations, although right now our demand is for at least the International Red Cross representatives in Azerbaijan to visit our serviceman. As of this moment this request hasn’t been fulfilled,” Tonoyan said.
Armenian military officer Gurgen Alaverdyan went missing in the evening of August 22 at his military outpost. The Armenian military launched a search operation to find the missing serviceman.
Then, it said that the serviceman got lost in severe weather conditions.
Afterwards, Azerbaijan announced that they have taken Alaverdyan into custody. Azerbaijan’s authorities started spreading fake news claiming that Alaverdyan is a commando who was carrying out a raid. The Armenian military strongly denied these accusations, reiterating that the serviceman got lost.
The Azerbaijani media then released a video where Alaverdyan is seen reading a text for the camera. The Armenian Defense Minister contacted Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk and noted that the videos made by Azerbaijan constitute a violation of international humanitarian law.
