In November, It Was Possible to Return All Prisoners, but Pashinyan Did Not Agree, Says Boris Avagyan

The Acting Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, deliberately kept the maps of mined areas 'under his pillow' and waited until the last week of the pre-election campaign to release them, whereas he could have handed them over to the Azerbaijani side earlier, allowing for the return of not just 15, but all captives. This information was provided to Sputnik Armenia by Boris Avagyan, the former Deputy Director of the State Emergency Service of the Artsakh Republic, who has close ties with the commander of the Artsakh peacekeeping mission, Rustam Muradov.

Baku handed over 15 prisoners to Yerevan with the active participation of Georgian Prime Minister Garibashvili. The exchange was facilitated by the United States and Georgia, as the Armenian National Security Service and Ministry of Defense had informed the Russian side in November that Armenia had no concrete information regarding those areas' minefield maps.

'If he had approached the Russian side now, it would have caused a huge scandal and raised questions, which is why he contacted his advisor in the United States and informed that he was ready to hand over the maps to Azerbaijan through the mediation of the US State Department and the Prime Minister of Georgia,' Avagyan stated.

According to him, the maps that Pashinyan transferred to the Azerbaijani side in exchange for the 15 prisoners contain information about 100,000 mines, while Azerbaijan would have to spend about $1,000 for the clearance of each mine.

'If we multiply that figure by $1,000, it turns out that with these maps, the Azerbaijani side won't spend $100 million, and moreover, it won't spend the 10-15 years it intended to dedicate to demining,' he added.

Avagyan says that despite all this, the Russian side is still willing, within the limits of possibilities and through negotiations, to return the remaining prisoners held in Baku to Armenia. He met with General Muradov yesterday.