Tatevik Hayrapetyan, a member of the “My Step” faction of the RA National Assembly, addressed the issue of Armenian prisoners of war in her speech during the summer session of PACE. According to “Armenpress”, Tatevik Hayrapetyan first presented the conversation between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and the wife of the President of Turkey.
“I want to quote verbatim the conversation of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev with Erdogan’s wife, Emine Erdogan, which took place about a week ago on the way to occupied Shushi. Emine Erdogan asks Aliyev whether there are still many Armenian prisoners of war held in Baku. In response to the question, Aliyev happily notes, yes, many. Emine Erdogan says, very good, return them in small ‘portions’. This is their verbatim conversation, the video is available on YouTube. Azerbaijan and Turkey are member states of the Council of Europe, and their leaders behave this way. This not only contradicts the logic of international law, but this is simply an abnormal and inhumane thing. And every time we come here, the relatives of the prisoners of war ask us: what is Europe doing to help return our loved ones. We answer: they discuss, they condemn, and as a result we have the return of prisoners of war in small ‘portions’, while there are many prisoners in Baku, and their families are suffering,” the deputy noted.
According to Tatevik Hayrapetyan, more than half a year has passed since Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia signed the ceasefire declaration. Armenia has fulfilled its obligations, it is Azerbaijan that refuses to do so, and then they come here and say: you know, we have returned 15 prisoners of war.
“Thank you very much, but I want to remind you that it is your obligation to return all prisoners of war immediately, in accordance with the trilateral statement. I want to say that peace is not just a beautiful word, we value peace more than any other people, because we know what it means to lose dear people, to be at war, but peace implies action, persistent work, and the Azerbaijani version of peace means: infiltrate the sovereign territory of Armenia, hold Armenian prisoners of war captive, dehumanize the Armenian people at the state level, and then come here and speak beautifully about peace. Azerbaijani colleagues, if you want peace, return to your country and force your dictator Aliyev to act in accordance with international law, to return Armenian prisoners of war and to leave the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. We do not want war, no one wants war, but if you want peace, then act,” the deputy noted.
