International rights group criticizes Azeri body for POWs – Armenian agency
Mediamax news agency
31 May 04
Yerevan, 31 May: The Azerbaijani state commission for POWs, hostages
and missing persons is engaged more in propaganda rather than search.
The press service of the Nagornyy Karabakh Republic [NKR] Foreign
Ministry has told Mediamax news agency that the co-chairmen of the
International working group for the release of POWs and hostages and
for the tracing of missing persons, Svetlana Gannushkina and Bernhard
Clasen, said this at a meeting with the NKR foreign minister, Ashot
Gulyan, in Stepanakert [Xankandi] today.
The co-chairmen of the International working group also said that
humanitarian problems could not be politicized. At the same time,
they noted that it was important to continue the activities of the
International working group.
Ashot Gulyan, for his part, expressed the hope that the experience
accumulated by the International working group would help it resolve
the problems facing it, which are also a cause of concern for all
the sides to the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. The minister noted
that the fact that Azerbaijan excessively politicized the issue
of missing persons and POWs and laid false claims to Armenia and
Nagornyy Karabakh significantly hindered the search work and created
an atmosphere of distrust. Ashot Gulyan said that a clear-cut position
of the International working group in this regard could help prevent
the Azerbaijani side from taking such steps.