YEREVAN (RFE/RL) — In a deal brokered by the United States and Georgia, Azerbaijan set free 15 Armenian prisoners of war on Saturday, June 12, after receiving more information from Armenia about minefields around Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced their release as he campaigned for snap parliamentary elections slated for June 20.
Pashinyan’s press secretary, Mane Gevorgyan, said that the POWs were repatriated to Armenia via Georgia.
“The process took place with U.S. and Georgian mediation, for which the government of Armenia thanks the U.S. administration and the Georgian government,” Gevorgyan wrote on Facebook.
Azerbaijan said it freed the POWs in exchange for an Armenian military map detailing the location of nearly 100,000 land mines in the Aghdam district east of Nagorno-Karabakh which was handed back to Baku under the terms of a Russian-brokered agreement that stopped last year’s Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
“The 15 Armenian captives were turned over on the Azerbaijani-Georgian border with the participation of Georgian representatives,” the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.