The issue of releasing Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev, who were taken hostage by Armenians, is likely to be raised at the summit of the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian presidents to be held in St. Petersburg on June 20, Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister, Chairman Chairman of the State Committee for Refugee and IDP Affairs Ali Hasanov told reporters.

Every Azerbaijani citizen worries about the fate of Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev, who are being held hostage by Armenia, Hasanov said noting that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev is closely following this process and raises this issue at all the meetings.

He said that Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev’s freely traveling to their native land Kalbajar was a blow to the opposite side.

“It was such a blow to the current criminal regime in Armenia that they have failed to recover themselves so far. Unfortunately, numerous appeals to all relevant international organizations for the release of the Azerbaijani hostages have yielded no results,” the deputy PM stressed.

During an operation in the Shaplar village of Azerbaijan's occupied Kalbajar district on July 11, 2014 Armenian forces killed an Azerbaijani, Hasan Hasanov, and detained two other Azerbaijanis, Shahbaz Guliyev and Dilgam Asgarov. A criminal case was filed against them.

Afterwards, a "court" sentenced Asgarov to life imprisonment and Guliyev to 22 years in prison.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict entered its modern phase when the Armenian SRR made territorial claims against the Azerbaijani SSR in 1988.

A fierce war broke out between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan. As a result of the war, Armenian armed forces occupied some 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory which includes Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent districts (Lachin, Kalbajar, Aghdam, Fuzuli, Jabrayil, Gubadli and Zangilan), and over a million Azerbaijanis became refugees and internally displaced people.

The military operations finally came to an end when Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in Bishkek in 1994.

Dealing with the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is the OSCE Minsk Group, which was created after the meeting of the OSCE Ministerial Council in Helsinki on 24 March 1992. The Group’s members include Azerbaijan, Armenia, Russia, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Turkey, Belarus, Finland and Sweden.

Besides, the OSCE Minsk Group has a co-chairmanship institution, comprised of Russian, US and French co-chairs, which began operating in 1996.

Resolutions 822, 853, 874 and 884 of the UN Security Council, which were passed in short intervals in 1993, and other resolutions adopted by the UN General Assembly, PACE, OSCE, OIC, and other organizations require Armenia to unconditionally withdraw its troops from Nagorno-Karabakh.