Our U.S. Embassy Yerevan intentionally avoids the proper term, "Prisoners of War" because those designated as such are afforded legal protections under the Third Geneva Convention and other international treaties signed by the U.S. and Azerbaijan.
"Detainees" are not.
The State Department's willingness to acquiesce to Azerbaijan's calculated mischaracterization of Armenian prisoners of war as detainees is addressed in H.Res.240, a bipartisan measure that calls out Baku for "misrepresenting their status in an attempt to justify their continued captivity."
Similarly, our Embassy - in this post - mentions neither who is being held prisoner nor who is holding these prisoners.
These are choices.
Choices with consequences.
Choices that send dangerous and destructive signals to Aliyev about the depth of our actual U.S. government commitment to this humanitarian crisis. - Aram Suren Hamparian, ANCA
Source- AntiFake.am