Official Stepanakert describes Azerbaijan’s offer to exchange prisoners as “blackmailing”

Azerbaijani saboteurs Dilham Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev who committed a crime and a terrorist act cannot be viewed in the same context with the Armenian citizens kept in Azerbaijan, spokesperson for the Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) president Davit Babayan told Aysor.am, referring to the earlier publication of Interfax-Azerbaijan, according to which Azerbaijan has offered Armenia exchange of captives with “all for all principle”.

The agency published the information citing its sources.

“I am not sure in the credibility of the news. Anyway, the official Stepanakert has not received such proposal. If it is spoken about Guliyev and Askerov, these people are assassins and terrorists, while Armenians kept in Azerbaijan are common civilians who Azerbaijan is obliged to free according to international norms and law,” Babayan said.

“How can a terrorist, criminal be exchanged with an innocent person? It is the moral side of the case. As to the legal viewpoint, these people are criminals convicted for their crimes. They cannot be exchanged with innocent people who Azerbaijan must release. What they say is not an offer but just a common blackmail,” the spokesperson for the Karabakh president said.

Three Armenian citizens are kept in Azerbaijan – Arsen Baghdasaryan, Karen Ghazaryan and Zavenb Karapetyan.

In the Armenian side Azerbaijani saboteurs Dilham Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev are kept. They are sentenced to life and 22 years imprisonment by Karabakh court for illegally crossing the Karabakh state border in July 2014, for spying, illegal possession of weaponry, kidnap and murder of a person.

Another Azerbaijani citizen Elnur Huseinzade is also kept in the Armenian territory. He was captured by the Defense Army during Azerbaijan's subversive act in February 2017.