During a joint press conference in Yerevan with Finland’s Foreign Minister and current OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Elina Valtonen, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan revealed that he discussed the issue of Armenian detainees with Azerbaijani counterparts in Sharm El Sheikh.
Anna Nazaryan (Public Radio): My question is addressed to Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. You mention that during all meetings and on international platforms, you raise the issue of prisoners of war and try to find a solution. Recently, you have been quite actively participating in international forums and meetings. What news can you share, and what is the probability of receiving information about prisoners through other countries?
Ararat Mirzoyan. Thanks for the question. In the conditions of a truly established peace within the framework of the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement process, in the conditions of agreements reached on several significant issues, however, there are still some issues that still need to be resolved and require additional efforts, which, in fact, have not been resolved at the moment, and one or the first one, is the issue of the release of hostages and prisoners held in Baku. We carry out our work in this direction on a daily basis, not always visible, not always effective – otherwise the issue would have been resolved long ago and removed from the agenda – but we are doing this work. As always, and at this moment, I also want to express the hope that we will have good news in this regard in the near future. In any case, we are not ceasing our efforts, and just yesterday, also within the framework of the Peace Summit in Sharm el-Sheikh, we discussed this issue again with our Azerbaijani colleagues. So let’s hope that our efforts will yield positive results in the near future.
The participation of third countries, especially in the context of the transfer of information about hostages, is of course important, especially given the fact that the International Committee of the Red Cross has ceased its activities in Azerbaijan. As you know, our work in this area has mainly been carried out through this channel, and now this issue is also very relevant, and we must somehow try to fill this gap. In general, our work on this topic certainly does not exclude, and this issue is constantly present in our contacts with third countries, but nevertheless, direct Armenia-Azerbaijan contacts are the main channel.