All Armenian POWs ‘would have been back home by Dec. 10’ had we urged Azerbaijan’s full compliance with Nov. 9 truce, says former defense official

All our prisoners of war (POWs) and civilians being held in Azerbaijani captivity would have been repatriated shortly after the war had our “authorities” demonstrated enough competence to urge Baku to abide by the November 9 ceasefire, particularly clause 8 thereof, says a former deputy minister of defense.

In an interview with Tert.am, Artak Zakaryan appreciated only Russia’s active engagement since the end of last year’s 44-day fighting, highlighting several captives’ return thanks to that country’s mediation efforts.

Condemning the current authorities as “capitulators bowing to the enemy”, Zakaryan said he doesn’t think that any Armenian citizen would have been taken captive under circumstances of proper state control. “The fact of having captives almost a month after the war is just the result of our authorities’ disgraceful negligence,” he noted.

According to Zakaryan, Azerbaijan would have returned all the POWs and detained persons “until December 10, 2020 the latest” had the incumbent authorities demonstrated due diligence and consistency. He highlighted the presence of Russian peacekeeping forces in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) as an absolute condition potentially ensuring immediate repatriation processes. Zakaryan also cited the Geneva Conventions, which he said could have guaranteed the complete implementation of the above clause "as early as seven months ago".

“No war would have erupted at all if not these ‘authorities’. Even if they had resigned immediately after the war, lots of problems would have been resolved differently. All the captives would have been returned long ago, and we would have no Azerbaijani troops on Armenia’s sovereign territory. Our borders would be duly equipped to the minimum to prevent [also] the presence of Turks on the highway leading to Syunik.  The status of Artsakh would be on the international agenda, and no minefield maps would have been transferred to Azerbaijan; the borders of the Republic of Armenia would not be scrapped through GPS tracking. And Turkey and Azerbaijan would not be talking about the so-called ‘Zangezur corridor’,” he added.