ArmInfo.The Armenian government is discussing the proposal of Azerbaijan on the exchange of prisoners, spokesman for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Vladimir Karapetyan, told reporters on September 19 after a cabinet meeting.
Earlier, official Baku came up with the idea of exchanging prisoners on the principle of "all for all", proposing to exchange Armenian citizens Arsen Baghdasaryan, Karen Ghazaryan and Zaven Karapetyan for Azerbaijanis Dilgam Askerov and Shahbaz Gyuliyev, convicted in Artsakh for a number of crimes, in particular for kidnapping and the murder of a minor based on national hatred committed on the territory of the Republic of Artsakh, as well as a civilian - Alvin Arif Oglu Hibragimov, born in 1986. Armenia rejected this offer, noting that those who committed serious crimes cannot be exchanged along with the prisoners according to the above principle.
"I didn't speak personally with the prime minister, but we are up to date and the issue is being discussed. Given the subtleties of the issue, we will announce the decision publicly when we are close to it," Vladimir Karapetyan said.
Meanwhile, speaking at a press conference convened on this occasion today, human rights activist and first Ombudsman of Armenia Larisa Alaverdyan stated that Azerbaijan is trying to free its hands for future crimes, namely to send saboteurs and to further kidnap people of Armenian nationality from border villages.
As Alaverdyan noted, earlier it became known that Azerbaijan appealed to the European Court of Human Rights regarding "the illegal detention of two people in the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh". <I think that today Azerbaijan announced its appeal to international organizations, which means that they were defeated in the ECHR. The cynicism of the appeal, apparently, was so obvious that the hope that the ECHR, on the basis of humanitarian considerations and the principles of human rights, could recognize these people as illegally detained and hostages, did not materialize. According to her, there is still a circumstance. <We know that this is not the first time that people have arrived in Azerbaijan who live in the border villages of Armenia and who have fallen into the territory of Azerbaijan, under very strange circumstances. I have reason to say that there is a systematic abduction of people from the border villages of Armenia. It is in order to then make them as <material>, sorry for the expressions, for sharing>, - said Larisa Alaverdyan. To recall, in July 2018, a resident of the village of Berdavan, Tavush region, Karen Ghazaryan, under unknown circumstances, ended up in Azerbaijan, and on far-fetched charges, was sentenced by an Azerbaijani court to 20 years in prison in February 2019. Arayik Ghazaryan - a serviceman of Artsakh Autonomous Region, appeared on the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan on August 12 under unclear circumstances.
Dilgam Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev as part of an armed group illegally entered the territory of the Artsakh Republic. The members of this criminal group committed a number of grave and especially grave crimes, including the abduction and murder of 17-year-old Smbat Tsakanyan, the killing of 43-year-old Sargis Abrahamyan and the grave wounding of 37-year-old Karine Davtyan.