MOSCOW, August 13. /TASS/. Russia is currently working with Azerbaijan on options for the early release and return home of Russian citizens detained in Baku, Alexey Fadeyev, Deputy Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said.
"Currently, work is underway with the Azerbaijani side on options for the early release and return home of Russian citizens detained in Baku. We believe that such a decision would be a significant step in the process of stabilizing the interstate relations between Russia and Azerbaijan," he said.
Fadeyev said that on July 1, Azerbaijani ambassador to Russia Rahman Mustafayev was summoned to the Russian Foreign Ministry, to whom "a protest was filed in connection with Baku’s unfriendly actions. And we have already noted earlier that there were simply no grounds for such actions by the Azerbaijani law enforcement agencies. We have secured consular access for the employees of the Russian embassy in Azerbaijan to the arrested Russians and are providing them with the necessary assistance, responding to their questions and requests."
About strained Baku-Moscow relations
On June 28, Russia’s Investigative Committee said it had suppressed the activities of a group involved in a string of murders committed in Yekaterinburg in the early 2000s.
Eight defendants were taken into custody.
According to preliminary data, one of the defendants died from heart failure during the raid, as well as a second person, whose cause of death is as still undetermined. Their bodies were taken from Yekaterinburg to Baku, which later said that a forensic examination had detected signs of violence and protested to Russia.
Azerbaijan cancelled events with Russian participation, Russian journalists Igor Kartavykh and Yevgeny Belousov and several Russian citizens were detained. Azerbaijan and Russia exchanged notes of protest, and diplomats were called in to the Foreign Ministry.