ArmInfo.Questions regarding the citizens of Armenia who have fallen into captivity in Azerbaijan are always in our attention. On March 19, during a press conference in Yerevan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this when answering the question whether the exchange of prisoners between Armenia and Azerbaijan is possible on the eve of the meeting Aliyev-Pashinyan to strengthen the atmosphere of trust.
The prime minister recalled that in the past there was a practice during the week of exchanging citizens who had lost their way and crossed the border. "And this practice was used both in Armenia, and in Artsakh and in Azerbaijan always. Everything stopped all this after the famous case when armed people - Azerbaijanis infiltrated the territory of Armenia and committed murders. We are ready to exchange the lost people for the lost, but not for the murders. Now they have our lost citizen, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison for political reasons. One of these days, their citizen has moved onto our territory, an investigation is underway, and we will find out if he is a saboteur or has simply lost his way. But, those people, as a result of whose actions people were killed - this is a serious nuance, when making a decision on them the opinion of the victims should be taken into account. In other cases, we are ready to discuss the exchange, " Pashinyan concluded. To note, today 4 Armenians are in Azerbaijani captivity, and two of them are accused of committing grave crimes and sentenced to 15 and 20 years in prison. The Azerbaijani court presented the verdict against the last citizen of Armenia, who went over to the side of Azerbaijan in July 2018 and had serious health problems, as a saboteur and in February sentenced him to 20 years in a maximum security prison. Thus, the Azerbaijani side is trying to recoup on the Armenian side for the fact that Azerbaijani saboteurs Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Askerov are serving time in Artsakh for the murder of a 17-year-old young man and injuring a woman. Last week, the citizen of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Alvin Alif oglu Ibrahimov, crossed the Armenian- Azerbaijani state border in the Tavush region, and the incident is now being investigated.