BAKU/YEREVAN. Aug 28 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan has arrested three Armenian football players residing in the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh republic for ten days for defiling the Azerbaijani flag and will deport them from the country after they serve their arrest, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office said.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry has denounced Azerbaijan's actions.
Azerbaijani border guards detained Armenian citizens Alen Sargsyan, Vahe Hovsepyan, and Levon Grigoryan at the Lachin border crossing point on Monday, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office said.
Azerbaijan had previously declared them internationally wanted in a criminal investigation into the defiling of the Azerbaijani flag in 2021 and posting a relevant video online.
However, the Azerbaijani Prosecutor General's Office said on Monday, "considering the age of the accused and their sincere repentance and honest confession [...] their criminal prosecution has been terminated."
"A court applied a ten-day administrative arrest to them," it said.
After the three men serve the term given to them by a court, they will be deported outside of Azerbaijan, it said.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry has described the detention of the three residents of the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh, who are members of a local football team 20 to 22 years of age, as their "abduction" at "the illegal checkpoint in the Lachin corridor" while on their way to Armenia.
Their "transportation was agreed in advance and was carried out accompanied by the Russian peacekeeping forces, which, in accordance with point 6 of the Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020 [between the leaders of Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan], were obliged to monitor the uninterrupted connection between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh through the Lachin corridor. These people were going to Armenia to continue their studies," the Armenian Foreign Ministry said.
Yerevan sees Baku's steps as "a gross violation of the Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020, legally binding Orders of the UN International Court of Justice, and open contempt for the unequivocal and targeted calls of the international community, including voiced by members of the UN Security Council," it said.
Yerevan said it was concerned that Baky might be "openly planning to subject the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh to collective punishment" and "continue its policy of ethnic cleansing."