YEREVAN. – No other development can occur, beyond the statements on returning the Azerbaijani saboteurs to Baku, for the simple reason that no direct message has been issued to the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), political analyst Sergey Minasyan said at a press conference on Wednesday.

He noted the aforesaid commenting on US State Department Spokesperson Jen Psaki’s recent statement that these saboteurs should be returned to Azerbaijan.

As per the analyst, the addressee of this statement was not the side which is accountable for the fate of these saboteurs and which has adopted legal acts toward them.

Minasyan, however, considered it comprehensible that the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, Victoria Nuland, recently had made a similar statement in the Azerbaijan capital city of Baku.

“[But] it is no accident that, in Yerevan, Nuland made an announcement with a bit different kind. It is another issue that, due to diplomatic considerations, she could not deny what she had already said in Baku,” the political analyst added.

In his view, this matter will not go beyond statements.

“These men are not prisoners of war; they committed a crime against civilians very far from the frontline,” said Sergey Minasyan. “Accordingly, the agreements, which are applied in the case of handing over prisoners of war, cannot be applied to them.”

As reported earlier, according to the NKR Police, Azerbaijani citizens Shahbaz Guliyev (born in 1968), Dilham Askerov (born in 1960), and Hasan Hasanov—who was killed by the Armenian armed forces while rendering these saboteurs ineffective—had illegally crossed the state border of Karabakh on June 29, 2014, and they were armed with weapons and ammunition. The three had entered the territory of the Shahumyan Region of Karabakh, and as spies to collect information and carry out espionage.

On July 4, 2014, they had kidnapped and subsequently murdered a Karabakh citizen, 17-year-old Smbat Tsakanyan, whose body was found on July 15, 2014, and with gunshot wounds, in a forest at the Shahumyan Region.

In addition, on the evening of July 11, 2014, Hasanov had killed Armenia capital city Yerevan resident Sargis Abrahamyan (born in 1971), and severely wounded Armenia’s Dzoraghbyur village resident Karine Davtyan, on the Vardenis-Karvachar Highway. Hasanov was armed and he resisted arrest; as a result, he was neutralized by the NKR special forces. Guliyev and Askerov, on the other hand, were detained, and they faced trial in the NKR.

Azerbaijani saboteur Dilham Askerov was charged with espionage; unauthorized border trespass; kidnapping and violence against a minor, committed by an organized group; murder committed by an organized group motivated by ethnic hatred; and attempt of murder of two persons, committed by an organized group, motivated by ethnic hatred. The other Azerbaijani saboteur, Shahbaz Guliyev, was charged with espionage; unauthorized border trespass; kidnapping and violence against a minor, committed by an organized group; and murder committed by an organized group motivated by ethnic hatred.

And on December 29, 2014, the First Instance General Jurisdiction Court of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic had sentenced Dilham Askerov and Shahbaz Guliyev to life and 22 years, respectively, in prison. The saboteur’s attorneys, however, have appealed these sentences.