Baku, October 7, 2026 – The Europe Today: The 4th International Conference in the Baku Dialogue format on “Strengthening Trust and Developing Effective Mechanisms in Addressing the Issue of Missing Persons” commenced at Gulustan Palace on Wednesday.
Organized by Azerbaijan’s State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons, the conference brought together former heads of state and government, senior officials from international organizations and foreign countries, representatives of institutions dealing with missing persons, experts, human rights specialists, non-governmental organizations, ambassadors, military attachés and other foreign representatives accredited in Azerbaijan.
Colonel-General Ali Naghiyev, Chief of Azerbaijan’s State Security Service and Chairman of the State Commission on Prisoners of War, Hostages and Missing Persons, read out an address by President Ilham Aliyev to the participants.
Addressing the conference, Naghiyev said that, as of October 1, 2026, a total of 4,010 Azerbaijani citizens had been registered as missing as a result of military aggression.
He said 4,004 of those reported missing disappeared during the First Garabagh War, while six went missing during the 44-day Patriotic War. Of the total, 3,228 are military personnel and 782 are civilians, including 71 children, 288 women and 319 elderly people.
Naghiyev emphasized that the figures demonstrate the scale of the tragedy and stressed that the State Commission’s primary objective is to establish the fate of every missing person.
He further said that, as of October 1, 2026, human remains believed to belong to 913 missing persons had been discovered and recovered. Remains believed to belong to 253 individuals had been exhumed from 32 mass graves found in the liberated territories.
The conference featured remarks by Azerbaijani Deputy Foreign Minister Fariz Rzayev; former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko; Kathryne Csekey Bomberger, Director-General of the International Commission on Missing Persons; former Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu; Şamil Ayrım, member of the Turkish Grand National Assembly; Gian Luca Beruto, Secretary-General of the International Institute of Humanitarian Law; Tea Akhvlediani, Georgian State Minister for Reconciliation and Civic Equality; Lord Graham Brady, member of the UK House of Lords; former Moldovan Prime Minister Chiril Gaburici; former Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Mladen Ivanic; and Rabea Saad Al-Adsani, Kuwaiti Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Participants also viewed photographs captured by internationally renowned photographer Reza Deghati in different conflict zones.
The conference continued with a series of panel discussions focusing on strengthening trust, international cooperation and developing effective mechanisms to establish the fate of missing persons.
