Armenia and Azerbaijan on Wednesday swapped prisoners of war, a first step towards normalising relations since Baku retook control of the long-disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in a one-day autumn offensive.
It is the first time the neighbours have exchanged prisoners since the lightening September offensive.
Azerbaijan’s military operation ended almost three decades of Armenian separatist control of Karabakh, forcing tens of thousands of ethnic Armenians to flee.
Peace talks — mediated separately by the European Union, the United States and Russia — have since stalled, despite both countries saying an agreement could be signed by the end of this year.
Baku on Wednesday announced it had freed more than two dozen Armenian soldiers.
“Azerbaijan freed 32 Armenian military, Armenia freed two Azerbaijani military,” Azerbaijan’s state commission for prisoners of war said in a statement.
It added that “the exchange took place at the Gazakh sector of the Azerbaijani-Armenian state border.”
“Armenian soldiers were handed to Armenia after the International Committee of the Red Cross examined their health and made a positive conclusion,” the statement said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan published on his Facebook page a list of 32 freed Armenian servicemen.
The exchange came after Baku and Yerevan last week released a joint statement, pledging to achieve a “long-awaited peace in the region” and announced a POWs swap.
The exchange was welcomed by all mediators of the conflict.
The EU, the US as well as regional powers Turkey and Russia praised the statement as a “breakthrough.”
Yerevan said in November that a total of 55 Armenian prisoners of war were being held by Baku.
The number included six civilians, 41 military, and eight separatist leaders arrested in the wake of Baku’s military operation.
– Rounds of talks –
The prisoner exchange raised hopes for reviving face-to-face talks between Pashinyan and Azerbaijani leader Ilham Aliyev.
The pair have met several times for normalisation talks mediated by the EU chief Charles Michel.
But the process has been on hold since October, when Aliyev declined to attend negotiations with Pashinyan in Spain, accusing France of bias.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been scheduled to join Michel as mediators at those talks.
There has been no visible progress so far in EU efforts to organise a fresh round of negotiations.
Azerbaijan also refused to participate in talks with Armenia that were planned in the US on November 20, over what it said was Washington’s “biased” position.
Traditional regional power broker Russia, bogged down with its dragging Ukraine offensive, has seen its influence wane in the Caucasus.
Aliyev sent troops to Karabakh on September 19, and after just one day of fighting, Armenian separatist forces that had controlled the disputed region for three decades laid down arms and agreed to reintegrate with Baku.
Almost the entire Armenian population of the mountainous enclave — more than 100,000 people — fled Karabakh for Armenia, sparking a refugee crisis.
Azerbaijan’s victory marked the end of the territorial dispute, which had long been seen as unresolvable and which led to two wars — in 2020 and the 1990s — that claimed tens of thousands of lives from both sides.
