Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a statement contradicting the previous statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry in Azerbaijan.

At a press conference summing up Russia’s diplomatic performance in 2014, the Minister was asked why Russia had not showed interest in the fate of its citizen Dilham Askerov.

In response, Lavrov said “he was detained by the Armenian side, and therefore the issue will be discussed with the Armenian side”.

The Minister said many Russian citizens are detained in many states, and the Russian side shows interest in their fate.

“Given the received information, we make decisions within the framework of bilateral relations of Russia with the concrete state,” he said.

According to Azerbaijan media reports, Russian Ambassador Vladmir Dorokhin in his letter to Meli Mejlis deputy chairman Bahar Muradova said there were no citizens of Russia among those held captive by the Armenians.

In addition, it is unclear who exactly Lavrov is going to hold discussion with: Askerov is under the jurisdiction of the authorities of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.

The Karabakh court sentenced Dilham Askerov to life imprisonment and Shahbaz Guliyev to 22 years in jail during the hearings on December 29.

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 the saboteurs ineffective—illegally crossed the state border of Karabakh on June 29, and they were armed with weapons and ammunition. The three entered the territory of the Shahumyan region of Karabakh as spies to collect information and carry out espionage.

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

In addition, on the evening of July 11, Hasanov 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 during the arrest; as a result, he was neutralized by the NKR special forces. The two others, Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilham Askerov, were detained, and they now stand trial in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.