YEREVAN. April 8 (Interfax) - The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is working with the sides in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to help them look for missing persons and the bodies of killed people, ICRC Yerevan office spokesperson Zara Amatuni told Interfax.
The ICRC is working to help the sides search for missing persons and the bodies of killed people, to organize their transfer to relatives and exchanges, she said.
The Defense Ministry of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic told Interfax that with the help of the Red Cross, the sides in the conflict reached an agreement to begin looking for the bodies of killed servicemen "in conditions of the strictest observance of the truce."
Nagorno-Karabakh Defense Ministry spokesman Senor Hasratyan told Interfax that "this process will be coordinated not only by the office of the International Committee of the Red Cross, but also by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe."
The search operation will continue from 3:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. local time, with truce guarantees being secured, he added.
Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said earlier that a 'quiet period' had been declared in the Karabakh conflict area in order to look for the bodies of killed people
Tensions in the Karabakh conflict zone abruptly escalated in the small hours of April 2. Hostilities engaging aircraft and artillery began. The sides traded accusations of breach of ceasefire along the contact line, as well as claiming substantial losses on the part of their adversary and limited losses of their own.
On April 5, Baku and Stepanakert, the capital of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, announced that an agreement had been reached to cease fire in the Karabakh conflict area from midday local time.
However, on Wednesday and Thursday, the sides continued to trade accusations of truce breaches.