Head of the ICRC delegation in Yerevan Lorenzo Caraffi said that the International Committee of the Red Cross is very pleased that Armenia and Azerbaijan have followed through on their commitment to exchange persons detained in relation to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, as declared by the Presidents of the two countries in Astrakhan in October 2010 and confirmed in Sochi in March 2011.

"Acting as a neutral intermediary and in accordance with our mandate, we facilitated the handover operation at the request of both the Armenian and the Azerbaijani authorities. Before the operation took place, the ICRC made sure that the persons concerned were returning of their own free will," Caraffi said.

The ICRC quoted Arthur Badalyan (born in 1978), who was transferred to Armenia on March 17, as saying: "I'm looking forward to being back with my family and spending time with my son, who has grown a lot since I last saw him."

According to the March 5 agreement achieved by the Presidents of the Republic of Armenia and the Azerbaijani Republic under the mediation of the President of the Russian Federation in Sochi, on March 17, at 2:58 pm of local time, in the section near the village of Bash Karvend of the border between the Nagorno Karabakh Republic and the Azerbaijani Republic, the Karabakh party, under the promotion of the ICRC Stepanakert and Yerevan Offices, passed sergeant of the Azerbaijani army Anar Hadjiev, taken prisoner in the NKR territory, to representatives of Azerbaijan.

Simultaneously, inhabitant of the village of Aghartsin of Armenia's Tavush provice Arthur Badalyan, 33, was transferred to the Armenian party.