Armenia and Azerbaijan exchange prisoners at border

Azerbaijan and Armenia traded prisoners-of-war at their border on Wednesday, a Reuters witness said, in a step towards normalising their relations after Azerbaijan achieved a decisive breakthrough in their decades-old conflict.
The exchange was expected to involve the release by Azerbaijan of 32 Armenians mostly captured in late 2020. In return, Armenia handed over two Azerbaijani soldiers held since April 2023.
Earlier on Wednesday, Russia’s TASS news agency reported that Armenia and Azerbaijann were also discussing the withdrawal of troops from their shared border, though no decision had yet been taken.
The South Caucasus neighbours have fought two wars in the past 30 years over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous area that is part of Azerbaijan, but where ethnic Armenians had broken away and established de facto independence in the 1990s.
Azerbaijan recaptured Karabakh in a lightning offensive in September, prompting most of its 120,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.