BAKU: Azerbaijan said Saturday it had freed 10 Armenian soldiers captured last month during fighting between the Caucasus arch foes.

After Russia-mediated talks, “Azerbaijan handed over 10 Armenian soldiers to the Armenian side”, the Azeri security services said in a statement, without giving a date for their release.

Armenia in exchange passed on maps of mine fields it had planted in territory that Azerbaijan seized from it last year in the war for the Nagorno-Karabakh region, it said.

The swap comes after Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliev and Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pachinian agreed to ease tensions last week at a rare meeting in Russia’s Black Sea resort of Sochi.