STEPANAKERT. – What is happening in Azerbaijan with the respect to the citizens of Karabakh and Armenia who for any reason found themselves on the Azerbaijani side is nothing but sabbath against humanity, spokesperson for Artsakh president Davit Babayan said.

His remark came in response to comment on Azerbaijan's attempts to exert pressure on Armenia and Karabakh by using the captives. On Wednesday Azerbaijani media published an interview of Arsen Baghdasaryan.

Davit Babayan recalled that all the fundamental international documents strictly prohibit drawing public attention to the person who is in captivity.

“But in Azerbaijan this fact is ignored. The authorities of this country are playing with the fate of the prisoners, using them for their own purposes. And the main goal is to free two terrorists and make them more heroic in the future, as it happened earlier with another criminal in other circumstances,” Babayan told Armenian News-NEWS.am.

 If Azerbaijan is really concerned about maintaining peace in the region, why they do not want to introduce mechanisms to investigate incidents, he wonders.

In this context, Babayan pointed to passive position of the international community.

“We can hear numerous comments and calls by representatives of the international agencies on even less serious matters. When the matter is the fate of people, they are completely silent. We can suppose one of the reasons might be ‘a caviar diplomacy’, and this requires deep and comprehensive study,” he added.

Asked about the interview of Arsen Baghdasaryan, Davit Babayan said it was undoubtedly made under pressure and torture.

Azerbaijani authorities demand the exchange of captives based on “all for all” principle.

However, there are no Azerbaijani POWs in Armenia. Two Azerbaijani convicts and one captive is in Artsakh. In Azerbaijan there is a citizen of Armenia and one citizen of Artsakh.

Prior to the trial of Askerov and Guliyev the parties exchanged citizens. However, now Azerbaijani authorities want to return two criminals and thus block the process of exchanging captives.