The preparatory work of Russian peacekeepers played an important role in the recent return of 15 Armenian soldiers from Azerbaijan, Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin told reporters on Tuesday.
"That exchange you mentioned [the return of 15 Armenian prisoners], I don't think it would have been possible if there had not been very significant preparatory work by the Russian side, Russian peacekeepers," the ambassador said.
"From the beginning, Russia has done everything and is doing everything possible for this [return of Armenian prisoners] to take place, the movement along this path has been moving forward. The commander of the Russian peacekeepers, General Rustam Muradov, played a very big role here personally," Kopyrkin stressed.
On June 12, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry reported about the return of 15 servicemen to Armenia in exchange for 97,000 anti-personnel and anti-tank mines laid in the Aghdam region. The ministry specified that the exchange took place on the Azerbaijani-Georgian border in the presence of Georgian representatives.
On May 27, Azerbaijan announced that six Armenian servicemen were captured while attempting to cross the border for sabotage. The Armenian side confirmed the fact of their capture but stressed that the servicemen were engaged in engineering work in the border zone of Armenia's Gegharkunik region at that time.
After the end of hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone last fall, according to the November 10 trilateral statement, seven districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, including Aghdam, came under Baku's control. The demining of the territories affected by the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains one of the main post-war issues between Baku and Yerevan.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Alexander Ryumin / TASS
Based on materials from TASS