Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The Armenian detainee captured in Azerbaijan's Tovuz region, was handed over to Armenia.

Armenian citizen Arsen Khojayan born 1991, who was taken prisoner on March 7, 2014 in Tovuz region of Azerbaijan, was returned to Armenia near the Azerbaijan-Armenia border in Bala Jafarli village of Gazakh district on April 10, Baku office of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told Trend Agency.

Khojayan was detained near a railway in Azerbaijan's Tovuz region.

The detainee said he got on Azerbaijan's territory by accident when he was searching for his sheep flock, secretary of Azerbaijani State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons, Shahin Sailov earlier said.

Presumably, he is a relative of Mamiko Khojayan who was detained on January 28 in Azerbaijan's Tovuz region and returned to Armenia on March 4.

For over two decades, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict which emerged over Armenia's territorial claims against its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions.

A fragile ceasefire has been in place since 1994, but long-standing efforts by the U.S., Russian and French mediators have been largely fruitless so far.

Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on its pullout from the neighboring country's territories.