Moscow sees no intentional protracting in the exchange of prisoners of war and dead bodies between Armenia and Azerbaijan as envisioned by the November 9 ceasefire deal to end hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 01st December, 2020) Moscow sees no intentional protracting in the exchange of prisoners of war and dead bodies between Armenia and Azerbaijan as envisioned by the November 9 ceasefire deal to end hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday.
"It is difficult to talk about any deliberate steps to delay this process. We do not see it, but the fact that there are objective difficulties, which I hope will be solved more quickly, is true," the Russian top diplomat said at a press conference following the Tuesday online meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Lavrov called for making the process more effective and expressed hope that involvement of the the International Committee of the Red Cross will facilitate the situation.
"Let's hope that with the involvement of specialists from this specialized international structure [ICRC] the process will go faster. Our [Russian] peacekeepers, to the best of their ability, will, of course, assist," the minister said.
Lavrov also said that Armenian and Azerbaijani military leaders should have "clear lists" of missing people to resolve issues in a more "substantive and specific way."
The armed conflict between Yerevan and Baku ended earlier in November after the warring sides agreed to a ceasefire mediated by Moscow that envisioned the deployment of a Russian peacekeeping mission to Nagorno-Karabakh. The deal led to the transfer of all regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, seized by the Armenian forces during the 1988-1994 war, to Azerbaijan. Yerevan has asked Moscow for assistance in returning Armenian captives and the bodies of those killed in the six-week conflict over the disputed region.
