Azerbaijan Releases 10 Armenian Soldiers for Mine Maps

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Azerbaijani authorities released Saturday 10 Armenian soldiers who had been captured last month during the clashes between the two Caucasus countries.

After Russian mediation, "Azerbaijan handed over 10 soldiers to Armenia," the Azeri security said Saturday, without providing details about their release date.

In return, Armenia provided maps of the mines it had planted in the lands captured by Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.

This deal came after Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed to mitigate tensions in the Sochi summit last week.

This is the first tangible indication of the simmering tensions between the two nations since the November clashes that claimed the lives of 15 Armenian soldiers on the borders.

Then rising tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan - which had been mounting for days in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region - were sparking concerns over the ceasefire between the two countries going back to square one after spending over a year fighting over the region.

At the end of the Nagorno-Karabakh war, Armenia was forced, under Russian mediation, to sign an agreement as per which it ceded three districts to Azerbaijan, which Yerevan had captured in the 90s.