After Azerbaijan made a significant advancement in their long-running battle, the two countries exchanged prisoners of war at their border on Wednesday in an effort to normalize their relations.

In exchange, Azerbaijan released 32 Armenians, the majority of whom had been detained in late 2020. Armenia returned the two Azerbaijani troops whom it had been holding since April 2023.

The removal of troops from Armenia and Azerbaijan’s shared border was reportedly under discussion, according to a report earlier on Wednesday by Russia’s TASS news agency, however no decision had been made as of yet.

“Thirty-one personnel from Armenia’s armed forces captured in 2020-2023 and one serviceman captured in Nagorno-Karabakh in September have crossed the Azerbaijani-Armenian border and are on Armenian territory,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan wrote on his Facebook account.

The South Caucasus neighbours have fought two wars in the past 30 years over Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous area that is part of Azerbaijan, but where ethnic Armenians had broken away and established de facto independence in the 1990s.