Azerbaijan Hands over 15 Armenian Prisoners in Return for Minefield Maps
TEHRAN (Tasnim) – Azerbaijan handed over 15 prisoners of Armenian origin to Armenia on Saturday in return for maps detailing the locations of 92,000 anti-tank and anti-personnel mines, Azerbaijan's foreign ministry said.
Ethnic Armenian and Azeri forces fought a bloody conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave last year that locked in territorial gains for Azerbaijan and was eventually brought to a halt by a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
In a statement on Saturday, Azerbaijan said that mediation by Moscow had helped it to obtain minefield maps from Armenia covering areas in the Fizuli and Zangilan regions in Nagorno-Karabakh, Reuters reported.
It said it had released and handed over prisoners of Armenian origin who had served their sentences. It gave no details of who they were.