ANKARA 

Azerbaijan on Friday detained the former "defense minister" of the so-called Armenian administration in the Karabakh region, according to the country's state-run news agency. 

"Lyova Henrikh Mnatsakanyan, born in 1965, who illegally arrived in the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan and served as the so-called 'minister of defence of the republic of Nagorno-Karabakh,' has been today detained while moving from Azerbaijan to Armenia by servicemen of the Azerbaijan's State Border Service at the Lachin state border checkpoint," AZERTAC reported.

Mnatsakanyan was later taken to Baku, accompanied by border special forces and handed over to the state authorities, AZERTAC said.

He served as "defense minister" in the so-called Armenian administration in Karabakh between 2015 and 2018.