During the Parliament-Government question-and-answer session, Arusyak Julhakyan, MP from the ‘Civil Contract’ faction, asked Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan about his online video meeting with the President of Azerbaijan with the mediation of French President Emmanuel Macron and President of the European Council Charles Michel, in particular, what issues were discussed? Have any agreements been reached on the issue of captives and missing persons?
“One of the important issues under discussion was the settlement of humanitarian issues. You know that after that meeting eight Armenian captives returned to the Homeland. I would like to express my gratitude for the efforts of President of France Emmanuel Macron and President of the European Council Charles Michel. After the meeting, there was such a misunderstanding about the following. We talked about the fate of the missing in the first war, as well as the fate of the missing in the 44-day war.
Azerbaijan constantly says that after the first Karabakh war they have about 4,000 missing persons, but I want to emphasize that the Armenian side also has missing persons, according to official figures we have 777 missing persons.
An attempt is made to present that the Armenian side has not taken any concrete steps in this issue either. Over the past year, the bodies of 108 people missing from the first war have been handed over to Azerbaijan. We are going to transfer another two bodies in the coming days,” Pashinyan said.
Pashinyan noted that he expects to establish cooperation not only in finding out the fate of the missing in the first war, but also in the 44-day war.
“An agreement has been reached to cooperate in finding out the fate of the missing. We returned 108 bodies without preconditions. We do not consider it right for it to become a subject of bargaining, because humanitarian issues should not be a subject of bargaining,” said the Prime Minister.
