“I could give standard, routine answers, but this is an issue that needs to be resolved.” Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan made the remarks during a parliamentary briefing, addressing efforts to secure the return of Armenians held in Azerbaijan.
According to the Minister, the continued detention of these individuals does nothing to promote peace, if anything, the opposite is true, and the Armenian side’s efforts to secure their release never cease.
“Why can’t I say with certainty and confidence that it will happen? Because this is something that does not depend on us.
The fact that we will not stop our efforts in this direction, and the fact that I do not understand why this issue is not being resolved—I genuinely disagree with their approaches and explanations. They offer certain explanations of their own, but that does not mean we are doing nothing. It is simply an issue that I truly do not consider appropriate to discuss publicly in detail.
There is only one thing that matters here: are there results or not? There have been results at certain stages, but now, for months—almost a year—not a single group or individual has been released. Let me say that we are working on this; we really are working,” he said.
Asked whether Armenia had approached a third country to help secure the release of Armenians held in Azerbaijan, Mirzoyan replied that this avenue had not worked.
“However much you may be inclined toward conspiracy theories, you should not think that way in this case. Do you think there is an opportunity to resolve the issue through a third country, and we are not pursuing it? We are the most interested party in resolving this issue, humanitarian considerations aside, so that nothing happens to us. Do you think there is an available option that we are not pursuing? Everything else is just a myth.
We have approached the third countries you mentioned, and they have either refused or been told to ‘stay out of it.’ That is the reality,” he said.
