18 April 2019, 10:25
NKR supports Azerbaijani-Armenian agreement on mutual visiting convicts
Zograb Mnatsakanyan and Elmar Mamedyarov, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, respectively, agreed to take measures to allow relatives to visit inmates. The Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) has stated that simultaneous reciprocal visits of relatives to convicts will be a guarantee of personal security for those who have to spend their prison terms in a foreign country.
According to the "Kommersant", Leyla Abdullaeva, a source from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Azerbaijan, said that Azerbaijanis had refrained from visiting their arrested relatives for personal security reasons.
According to official data, three Armenian citizens are kept in captivity in Azerbaijan: Arsen Bagdasaryan, Zaven Karapetyan and Karen Kazaryan. The NKR keeps two citizens of Azerbaijan: Shakhbaz Guliev and Dilkham Askerov.
"We are ready to receive Azerbaijani relatives, but on the basis of reciprocity," said David Babayan, the head of the Chief Information Department of the NKR President's Office.
He has added that now relatives of the convicted residents of Azerbaijan regularly communicate with them through letters and Skype; and they are visited by officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Artak Beglaryan, the NKR's Ombudsman, has noted that the republic had already made proposals in the humanitarian sphere in order to maintain stability in the region, but Azerbaijan "rejected these proposals."
After the escalation of the Karabakh conflict, the time has come to solve humanitarian issues, Karen Ogandjanyan, a human rights defender from the NKR, believes.
This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 18, 2019 at 05:44 am MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.
Author: Alvard Grigoryan Source: CK correspondent
