WASHINGTON, DC. – The US Department of State again called upon the Armenian side to return to Baku the Azerbaijani saboteurs who had killed an Armenian teenager in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), informed the Washington, DC. correspondent of Armenian News-NEWS.am.

As per US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki, the United States had, “previously advocated through Ambassador [James] Warlick [i.e., the US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group] and others the release of these two prisoners to the Government of Azerbaijan.”

To note, US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs Victoria Nuland, who recently paid a visit to the region, had urged the Armenian side to “return the two prisoners to the Government of Azerbaijan.”

“The sides have generally found a way in the past to return prisoners as a humanitarian gesture, and such humanitarian gestures have been shown to reduce tensions and build trust between the sides. So that’s what she was referring to,” Psaki explained.

As reported earlier, however, the authorities of Armenia had advised petitioning to the NKR government with such a request. Second, they had recalled that persons who kill civilians cannot be considered prisoners of war, since they are war criminals.