Armenia, Azerbaijan Agree to Take Steps towards Normalization

Azerbaijan holds a November military parade in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office/AFP/File
Azerbaijan holds a November military parade in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office/AFP/File
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Armenia, Azerbaijan Agree to Take Steps towards Normalization

Azerbaijan holds a November military parade in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office/AFP/File
Azerbaijan holds a November military parade in Nagorno-Karabakh. Azerbaijani Presidential Press Office/AFP/File

Arch-foes Armenia and Azerbaijan said Thursday they would exchange prisoners of war and work towards normalizing their relations, in a joint statement hailed by the European Union and the United States as a breakthrough after three decades of conflict over disputed territory.
The Caucasus neighbors have long fought over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan reclaimed after a lightning offensive against Armenian separatists in September.
Both countries have said a peace agreement could be signed by the end of the year, but peace talks -- mediated separately by the European Union, the United States and Russia -- have seen little progress.
The two sides agreed in Thursday's joint statement to seize "a historical chance to achieve a long-awaited peace in the region".
"The two countries reconfirm their intention to normalize relations and to reach the peace treaty," the statement said.
Baku will free 32 Armenian prisoners of war, while Yerevan will release two Azerbaijani servicemen, according to the statement.
They also agreed to continue discussions on "more confidence building measures, effective in the near future".
COP29
As a sign of good faith, Armenia announced it was withdrawing its bid to host UN-led climate talks next year, paving the way for Azerbaijan's candidacy.
The annual negotiations on fighting climate change, known as COPs, rotate among regions and were due to be hosted by an Eastern European country in 2024 after this year's COP28 in Dubai.
"As a sign of good gesture, the Republic of Armenia supports the bid of the Republic of Azerbaijan to host (COP29) by withdrawing its own candidacy," the statement read.
"Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan do hope that the other countries within the Eastern European Group will also support Azerbaijan's bid to host."
A grouping of Eastern European nations must unanimously choose the COP29 host, but Russia is reportedly opposing an EU member holding the event as tensions with the bloc run high during the war in Ukraine.
Non-EU countries Armenia and Azerbaijan were both seen as candidates, but Baku's offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh has escalated tensions with Moscow.
'Key step'
Armenia's foreign ministry said Yerevan had "responded positively to the offer of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to organize the meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington".
EU Council President Charles Michel praised the statement, calling it a "key step".
"Delighted to welcome a major breakthrough in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations as they issue a joint statement," he wrote on social media.
The United States also welcomed the steps by the two countries.
"This commitment represents an important confidence building measure as the sides work to finalize a peace agreement and normalize relations," State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said in a statement Thursday.
Stalled talks
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev have met several times for normalization talks mediated by the EU.
But the process stalled over the last two months as two negotiation rounds failed to take place.
Azerbaijan refused to participate in talks with Armenia that were planned in the United States on November 20, over what it said was Washington's "biased" position.
In October, Aliyev declined to attend negotiations with Pashinyan in Spain, that time accusing France of bias.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been scheduled to join Michel as mediators at those talks.
There has been no visible progress so far in EU efforts to organize a fresh round of negotiations.
The traditional regional power broker Russia has seen its influence wane in the Caucasus.
Aliyev sent troops to Karabakh on September 19, and after just one day of fighting, Armenian separatist forces that had controlled the disputed region for three decades laid down arms and agreed to reintegrate with Baku.
Almost the entire Armenian population of the mountainous enclave -- more than 100,000 people -- fled Karabakh for Armenia, sparking a refugee crisis.
Azerbaijan's victory marked the end of the territorial dispute, which led to two wars in 2020 and the 1990s that claimed tens of thousands of lives from both sides.



Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
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Bangladesh Protest Leaders Taken from Hospital by Police

People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)
People take part in a song march to protest against the indiscriminate killings and mass arrest in Dhaka on July 26, 2024. (AFP)

Bangladeshi police detectives on Friday forced the discharge from hospital of three student protest leaders blamed for deadly unrest, taking them to an unknown location, staff told AFP.

Nahid Islam, Asif Mahmud and Abu Baker Majumder are all members of Students Against Discrimination, the group responsible for organizing this month's street rallies against civil service hiring rules.

At least 195 people were killed in the ensuing police crackdown and clashes, according to an AFP count of victims reported by police and hospitals, in some of the worst unrest of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina's tenure.

All three were patients at a hospital in the capital Dhaka, and at least two of them said their injuries were caused by torture in earlier police custody.

"They took them from us," Gonoshasthaya hospital supervisor Anwara Begum Lucky told AFP. "The men were from the Detective Branch."

She added that she had not wanted to discharge the student leaders but police had pressured the hospital chief to do so.

Islam's elder sister Fatema Tasnim told AFP from the hospital that six plainclothes detectives had taken all three men.

The trio's student group had suspended fresh protests at the start of this week, saying they had wanted the reform of government job quotas but not "at the expense of so much blood".

The pause was due to expire earlier on Friday but the group had given no indication of its future course of action.

Islam, 26, the chief coordinator of Students Against Discrimination, told AFP from his hospital bed on Monday that he feared for his life.

He said that two days beforehand, a group of people identifying themselves as police detectives blindfolded and handcuffed him and took him to an unknown location.

Islam added that he had come to his senses the following morning on a roadside in Dhaka.

Mahmud earlier told AFP that he had also been detained by police and beaten at the height of last week's unrest.

Three senior police officers in Dhaka all denied that the trio had been taken from the hospital and into custody on Friday.

- Garment tycoon arrested -

Police told AFP on Thursday that they had arrested at least 4,000 people since the unrest began last week, including 2,500 in Dhaka.

On Friday police said they had arrested David Hasanat, the founder and chief executive of one of Bangladesh's biggest garment factory enterprises.

His Viyellatex Group employs more than 15,000 people according to its website, and its annual turnover was estimated at $400 million by the Daily Star newspaper last year.

Dhaka Metropolitan Police inspector Abu Sayed Miah said Hasanat and several others were suspected of financing the "anarchy, arson and vandalism" of last week.

Bangladesh makes around $50 billion in annual export earnings from the textile trade, which services leading global brands including H&M, Gap and others.

Student protests began this month after the reintroduction in June of a scheme reserving more than half of government jobs for certain candidates.

With around 18 million young people in Bangladesh out of work, according to government figures, the move deeply upset graduates facing an acute jobs crisis.

Critics say the quota is used to stack public jobs with loyalists to Hasina's Awami League.

- 'Call to the nation' -

The Supreme Court cut the number of reserved jobs on Sunday but fell short of protesters' demands to scrap the quotas entirely.

Hasina has ruled Bangladesh since 2009 and won her fourth consecutive election in January after a vote without genuine opposition.

Her government is also accused by rights groups of misusing state institutions to entrench its hold on power and stamp out dissent, including the extrajudicial killing of opposition activists.

Hasina continued a tour of government buildings that had been ransacked by protesters, on Friday visiting state broadcaster Bangladesh Television, which was partly set ablaze last week.

"Find those who were involved in this," she said, according to state news agency BSS.

"Cooperate with us to ensure their punishment. I am making this call to the nation."