AZE.US
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has called for the creation of a dedicated United Nations mechanism on missing persons, saying it should strengthen international searches, information-sharing and support for families who have waited years for news of relatives.
Aliyev made the proposal in an address on Oct. 7 to participants in the Fourth International Conference of the Baku Dialogue on Missing Persons. State Security Service chief Ali Naghiyev read the address at the conference.
Aliyev said information about the fate of missing people should not be made subject to political conditions. Effective work, he said, requires political will, reliable data and sustained cooperation, including access to archives, the use of modern technology, specialist training and regular communication with families.
He noted that Azerbaijan has sponsored U.N. General Assembly resolutions on missing persons since 2002 and urged the United Nations and other relevant organizations to play a more active role in searches, information exchanges and the development of forensic capacity.
Remains Linked to 913 Missing People Found
At the same conference, Naghiyev said remains believed to belong to 913 missing people had been recovered as of Oct. 1. Biological samples from 11,576 donors have been collected and cataloged to assist identification, according to figures he presented at the event.
Azerbaijan’s State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons said direct contacts with the Armenian side have been underway since February 2025. Naghiyev said Baku had given Yerevan a list of 834 Azerbaijani citizens whom Azerbaijan says were taken prisoner or hostage during the First Karabakh War. The submission included detailed information on 104 people.
The commission also said the bodies of 17 of 54 Azerbaijani citizens officially registered by the International Committee of the Red Cross had been returned. Azerbaijani officials say the bodies of another 33 people who died in detention have not been returned and the fate of four others is unknown. Those assertions have not been independently verified, and Armenia has not publicly responded to the latest claims.
Deputy Foreign Minister Fariz Rzayev said Azerbaijan has transferred to Armenia the remains of more than 2,000 Armenian service members since November 2020. Baku has also proposed using Armenian DNA samples to check remains recovered in territories returned to Azerbaijani control. Officials said no matches have yet been found with profiles for 50 missing people provided by Armenia in January 2026.
Source: Vesti Baku.
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