Tuesday, June 2 2015 06:27

"I expect some progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict after the visit of the OSCE chairman-in-office," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov said at a press conference following a meeting with the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office, Serbian Foreign Minister Ivica Dacic, APA reports.  It's time to break the deadlock over the conflict settlement, the Azerbaijani FM said.

APA quotes Mammadyarov as saying, "All parties are interested in resolving the conflict. The co-chair countries are also trying to break the deadlock. In the near future a MG-format meeting is expected to be arranged in order to choose any path for the settlement of the conflict." 

In the meantime, Mammadyarov said that he had asked the OSCE chairperson-in-office to raise in Yerevan the issue of returning the Azerbaijani raiders, who are serving sentence in Arsakh. They must return to their homeland as soon as possible, he said.  "Azerbaijan is ready to work on the final documents on the conflict's settlement. We expect that the meetings to be held in Yerevan will give an impetus to the issue," he added. 

According to Nagorno-Karabakh's Police, on 29 June 2014, Shahbaz Jalal oghli Guliyev, Dilham Gardashkhan oghli Askerov and Hasan Hasanov illegally penetrated into the territory of NKR having with then arms and ammunition and attempted a sabotage attack. They were spying and even kidnapped minor Smbat Tsakanayn, a citizen of NKR on 4 July, who was later found with deadly wounds to the head.   Afterwards, on 11 July, on the Vardenis-Karvachar road, Hasanov murdered a resident of Yerevan Sargis Abrahamyan (born in 1971) and wounded Karine Davtyan, a resident of Dzoraghbyur village on the grounds of national hatred. He was killed showing armed resistance to the Armenian forces. The other two raiders were arrested.  Shahbaz Guliyev, 46, and Dilham Askerov, 54, were charged under the NKR Criminal Code's Article 316 (spying), Article 350 part 2 (violation of the NKR's border by an organized group), Article 245 part 3 (illegal carrying of arms and ammunition), Article 129 part 3 point 1 (kidnapping, actions against a minor with the use of arms), Article 103 part 2 points 3,7,14 (murder combined with kidnapping by an organized group out of ethnic hatred) and Articles 33 and 103 part 1 point 14 (attempted murder of two or more people by an organized group out of ethnic hatred).

On 29 Dec 2014, the Court of Artsakh sentenced Dilham Askerov to life imprisonment and Shahbaz Guliyev to 22 years in jail. The convicts' lawyers say that the defendants have decided to apply to the Court of Appeal to revise the judgment.