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The Human Rights Defender of Armenia Arman Tatoyan held a working meeting with Associate Director for Human Rights Watch's Europe and Central Asia division Tanya Lokshina, the Ombudsman's Office reported.

The Ombudsman informed that Azerbaijani authorities artificially protract the process of exchange of bodies and captives, which has been the case during the military actions and continues now after the end of the war.

With this Azerbaijan aims to create an atmosphere of tension and uncertainty in the Armenian public, disrupt the psychological immunity of the society and distress family members of the killed servicemen, those missing and the captives. In Tatoyan's words, such treatment is a result of the organized and disseminated hatred, as an inseparable systematically applied policy of torture and inhuman treatment. Moreover, the perpetrators are encouraged, while cases of torture and cruelly are widely promoted.

"In the occurred situation, the release of the captives, their safe return as well as the exchange of the bodies of those killed require an urgent action," Tatoyan said.

During the meeting, the Ombudsman Tatoyan stressed his conclusion that targeting of the peaceful population of Artsakh, the use of banned weapons, the involvement of terrorist mercenaries, the promotion of Armenaphobia, as well as wide-spread torture and inhuman treatment speak of the Azerbaijani policy to conduct ethnic cleansing in Artsakh through terrorist means which continue up to date.

Tatoyan also thanked the Human Rights Watch for a special report that confirmed and documented the use banned cluster munitions in residential areas in Nagorno-Karabakh.