On Saturday, Azerbaijan exchanged 15 Armenian prisoners for a map showing the location of landmines in Agdam, an area that Armenian separatists surrendered under last year’s agreement to end the brief war. The agreement on the exchange of prisoners is the first of its kind between the two countries, said the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry.
A ceasefire brokered by Russia ended six weeks of fighting last November. However, irregular clashes in the area continue, indicating that the ceasefire is fragile.
Armenia is interested in its prisoners of war. Azerbaijan, on the other hand, still has problems with loss of life due to landmines. In the beginning of June, landmines were killed in an area evacuated by Armenian separatists, two journalists and a local official in November, Reuters reported.
Last September, another armed conflict broke out between the two former Soviet republics over Nagorno-Karabakh, controlled by local Armenian separatists at the turn of the 1980s and 1990s. Last year’s fighting ended with an agreement brokered by Russia, which resulted in most of the region remaining in Armenian hands, but Azerbaijan made significant territorial gains. Areas adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh have come under Baku control, and Armenia’s border with Azerbaijan now runs directly along Sjunik Province.
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