Azerbaijani SSS spread Armenian military's video appeal

In the video appeal released by the State Security Service (SSS) of Azerbaijan, a man, presented as the detained Armenian military serviceman, says that he had been sent to commit a diversion. The officer read out the prepared text under pressure, experts in Yerevan believe.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on August 23, the Azerbaijani Ministry of Defence (MoD) reported about an armed clash with saboteurs in the Karabakh conflict zone, where an Armenian officer was taken prisoner. In is turn, the Armenian MoD has stated that Gurgen Alaverdyan is not a saboteur; he had just got lost due to bad weather. Alaverdyan faces criminal prosecution, but it is possible that Azerbaijan will agree to exchange him and three more residents of Armenia for the Azerbaijani citizens kept in jails of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) and Armenia, experts believe.

In the video, posted on the YouTube by the Azerbaijan SSS, a man says that in July his group was given the task to prepare for "a sabotage act on the combat positions of Azerbaijan in the direction of the Goranboy District" in order to "liquidate as many Azerbaijani soldiers as possible by using submachine guns and grenades, and capture one of them as prisoner."

Alaverdyan also says that "he didn't want to serve in the Azerbaijani occupied territories, but as a military man he was forced to do it."

"I regret what I have done ... I want to stay in Azerbaijan and serve this state," he has stated.

"One thing is certain: the captured Armenian officer is reading a prepared text," Mariam Kirakosyan, a philologist, has noted.

Alaverdyan speaks not on himself but reads the prepared text, Taron Ovannisyan, an expert at the "Orbeli" Analytical Centre.