The Armenian Ministry of Defense discussed with the head of the Yerevan delegation of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Claire Maitro the procedure for exchanging prisoners and bodies of dead servicemen in Nagorno-Karabakh. This was reported by “RIA Novosti” with reference to the press service of the department on Saturday, October 10.
“During the meeting, the procedures regarding the activities, mediated by the ICRC and on the basis of its standards, for the exchange of prisoners, detained persons and bodies of those killed in the conditions of the ceasefire announced along the entire perimeter of the Artsakh-Azerbaijani front line were considered,” the message says.
It is noted that this activity will be coordinated by the authorities of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR).
Earlier on Saturday, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian thanked the Russian side for its contribution to reaching an armistice in the Karabakh conflict zone.
According to him, people are gradually leaving their homes and trying to understand whether a truce has really come.
According to the Izvestia correspondent, shops reopened in the NKR capital Stepanakert on Saturday, people began to take to the streets.
The day before, as a result of consultations held in Moscow on the initiative of the Russian side, Azerbaijan and Armenia agreed on a ceasefire from 12:00 local time (11:00 Moscow time) on October 10 for humanitarian purposes to exchange prisoners and bodies of the dead.
The parties also agreed, with the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, to start substantive negotiations for the earliest possible achievement of a peaceful settlement of the situation in Karabakh and confirmed the invariability of the format of the negotiation process.
The conflict in Karabakh began in February 1988, when the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its secession from the Azerbaijan SSR. During the armed confrontation in 1992-1994, Baku lost control over the region and seven adjacent districts. Since 1992, negotiations on a peaceful settlement of the conflict have been conducted within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, headed by three co-chairs – Russia, the United States and France.
Another exacerbation of the conflict in the NKR took place on September 27. Yerevan and Baku have shifted responsibility for the aggravation of the situation onto each other.