AZERBAIJAN APPEALS TO ICRC REGARDING COUNTRY’S CITIZEN TAKEN HOSTAGE BY ARMENIA
Trend, Azerbaijan
July 12 2014
Baku, Azerbaijan, July 12
By Ilkin Izzet-Trend:
Azerbaijan has appealed to the International Committee of the Red Cross
(ICRC) to clarify the information disseminated by the media, about
an Azerbaijani citizen taken hostage by the Armenian side, ICRC Baku
Office’s Public Relations Department head Ilaha Huseynova told Trend.
The appeal requests that in case of confirmation of the information
to carry out the appropriate procedures in accordance with the
ICRC’s mandate.
Earlier Armenian media reported about the capture of Azerbaijani
citizen who was allegedly a military serviceman of the Azerbaijani
armed forces. The captured person’s name was Shahbaz Guliyev, born
in 1968.
Azerbaijani Defense Ministry told Trend that the captured man was
not the soldier of the country’s armed forces.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988
when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan.
As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied
20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and
seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs
of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the U.S. are currently
holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council’s four
resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the
surrounding regions.