Belgrade, 24.05.2007 - The PACE Standing Committee, meeting in Belgrade today, deplored that, twelve years since the end of hostilities, the issue of the missing persons in Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia remained unsolved. According to a report by Leo Platvoet (Netherlands, UEL), the number of missing persons as a result of the conflicts over the regions of Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia can be calculated at 7 538 persons.
For the Standing Committee, the issue of missing persons is a humanitarian problem with human rights and international humanitarian law implications. It should "not be treated as a political issue" and consequently should "not be dependent on the political settlements of the disputes in the region".
In a resolution adopted today, the Standing Committee addresses to the three countries a number of proposals to agree consolidated lists of the missing, establish a multilateral mechanism for co-operation between commissions for missing persons and work together on tracing, mapping, identification and management of human remains. It also recalls that the families of the missing need social, material and psychological support, and that the memory of the missing needs to be respected.