ICMP holds consultations with Azerbaijan on search for missing persons

The International Commission on Missing Persons (ICMP) has had preliminary consultations with Azerbaijan and Armenia to assess the provision of assistance in locating missing persons, the ICMP told Report.

“Its mandate [of the commission] is to secure the cooperation of governments and other authorities in locating persons missing as a result of conflicts, human rights abuses, natural and man-made disasters and other involuntary reasons and to assist them in doing so,” the commission noted.

Earlier, Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan - Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmat Hajiyev noted that cooperation with this commission, established after the war in the former Yugoslavia, would be useful for Azerbaijan, where almost 4,000 people are reported missing.

The ICMP was created at the initiative of US President Bill Clinton in 1996. The original mandate of the ICMP was to help find approximately 40,000 persons who went missing in the region as a result of the conflicts in the 1990s.