YEREVAN. – I have sent an official letter to the PACE leadership, the UN Secretary General, the Council of Europe Commission for the Prevention of Torture, and to virtually all international organizations. Naira Zohrabyan, chair of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Protection of Human Rights and Public Affairs and member of the opposition Prosperous Armenia party, told this to reporters Monday, commenting on the situation with the Armenian POWs in Azerbaijan.

According to her, during the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war, she had established permanent contacts with her European colleagues. "We have presented updated information in connection with our POWs being tortured in Azerbaijan; the information was passed to international organizations, too," the MP added.

She noted that after receiving information that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev intends to display Armenian POWs and military equipment during a parade in Baku, the aforesaid Armenian parliamentary commit had given a concrete assessment on it. "Naturally, it is a war crime," Zohrabyan added.

On November 9, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a joint statement on a complete cessation of hostilities— which Azerbaijan had launched on September 27—in and around Artsakh. Accordingly, Russian peacekeepers are deployed in the region to monitor the implementation of the ceasefire and the cessation of hostilities. But this statement also stipulates the handover of part of Artsakh lands to Azerbaijan.