“Azerbaijan constantly says that it has about 4,000 missing people after the first Artsakh war. The Armenian side also has 777. It is the official number. An attempt is made to present that the Armenian side has not taken concrete steps in this issue either,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during the government-NA questions-and-answers session on February 9.
“In one year, the remains of 108 people missing from the first war were transferred to the Azerbaijani side, in this case the term was used correctly. We are going to transfer two more remains in the coming days. The work of the Republic of Armenia on this topic started at the beginning of 2020, when we discussed it at the sitting of the Security Council through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. I gave an instruction that the humanitarian issues should be settled.” He added, “We expect that we will be successful in cooperating to confirm the fate of those missing in action not only those from the first war, but also the 44-day war. We have 217 missing from the 44-day war. Yes, an agreement has been reached to cooperate in finding out the fate of the missing.”
Then, Pashinyan stressed that they had not previously stated that so many remains had been returned to the Azerbaijani side because they thought it was a humanitarian issue. “There is no question of collecting international dividends. I hope the Azerbaijani side will also take concrete steps.”
Arusyak Julhakyan, a Civil Contract MP who asked a question on this topic, asked whether we could prove bargaining, and whether Azerbaijan demanded the remains of those missing in the first war in exchange for returning the captives. Pashinyan answered, “We returned 108 people’s remains without preconditions. We do not consider it right for the humanitarian issue to become a subject of bargaining. We treated the mine maps in the same way. You do not bargain with people’s fates.”
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Luiza Sukiasyan
