YEREVAN — The Armenian foreign ministry issued a statement on Thursday condemning the violation of the rights of the officer Gurgen Alaverdyan who was captured by Azeri’s when got lost while checking border combat positions.
“We strongly condemn the degrading treatment of the officer Gurgen Alaverdyan, who appeared under the Azerbaijani jurisdiction on August 22. This is a flagrant and gross violation of the international humanitarian law.
By publicly violating the dignity of Gurgen Alaverdyan, Azerbaijan denies the right of the prisoners of war to be “entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honor” which is asserted by civilized humanity and enshrined in the Third Geneva Convention. Such practice represents a distinctive method of notorious terrorist organizations and, as we can observe, of Azerbaijan as well.
The dictatorial regime of Azerbaijan, while feeding its people with disgraceful propaganda and Armenophobia, covers up the serious setbacks of its armed forces in the July battles by coercing the prisoner of war to read out its sham narratives.
The fact that Azerbaijan is one of the few countries to have refused to ratify all the Additional Protocols to the Geneva Conventions also demonstrates their disregard of the international humanitarian law.
The continuous violations of international humanitarian law by Azerbaijan seriously undermine the establishment of an environment conducive to peace”.
On his part, Minister of Defense Davit Tonoyan said he is confident that international organizations spare no effort to return the Armenian military officer held captive in Azerbaijan back home.
“We are sure that both the OSCE and the International [Committee ] of the Red Cross, relevant organizations of the UN spare no effort in order for the serviceman to be returned,” Tonoyan told reporters on August 28 in parliament.
“Our preliminary assessment is that our serviceman got lost and appeared in the adversary’s side. We must yet determine if he was possibly kidnapped or in whatever other conditions he appeared there. Depending on this we will work in different formats in different international organizations, although right now our demand is for at least the International Red Cross representatives in Azerbaijan to visit our serviceman. As of this moment this request hasn’t been fulfilled,” Tonoyan said.
