YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 9, ARMENPRESS. In the past one year the Armenian side has returned bodies of 108 people missing since the first Artsakh war to Azerbaijan, 2 more bodies will be handed over in coming days, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said during a Q&A session in the Parliament.

When asked to inform whether agreements about solving the issue of captives and missing persons were reached during the recent remote meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders at the mediation of the French President Emmanuel Macron and President of the European Council Charles Michel, the Armenian PM said that one of the issues that was discussed at that meeting related to the solution of the humanitarian problems. He reminded that after that meeting 8 Armenian captives returned to Armenia. Pashinyan praised the efforts of Emmanuel Macron and Charles Michel in this process.

“We also talked about the fates of persons missing after the first war and the 44-day war. Azerbaijan constantly says that they have nearly 4000 missing persons after the first Karabakh war. I want to state that the Armenian side also has missing persons, 777 according to official data. An attempt is made to present that the Armenian side has not taken concrete actions also in this matter. I want to inform that over the past year bodies of 108 persons missing after the first war have been handed to the Azerbaijani side. We are going to transfer 2 more bodies in coming days”, the Armenian PM said, adding that Armenia hasn’t published that it has returned so many bodies because it believes that it’s a humanitarian issue.

The Armenian side has returned these 108 bodies without preconditions. “Because we do not consider it right for it to become a subject of any bargaining, because the humanitarian issues should not be a subject of bargaining. We did the same with the minefield maps, by returning them without conditions so that it would not become a subject of bargaining. Because we don’t think that we should bargain by people’s fate”, he said.

Pashinyan assured that Armenia started the work on this topic back in early 2020 when they discussed it during the Security Council session at the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, and he tasked to solve these humanitarian problems. “And we expect that we will manage to establish cooperation in clarifying the fates of not only the persons missing after the first Karabakh war, but also those missing in the 44-day war. We have 217 missing persons after the 44-day war. And yes, an agreement has been reached to cooperate to find out the fates of the missing persons”, he said, expressing hope that the Azerbaijani side will also take concrete steps on this direction.

Pashinyan also reminded the clear position of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) that captured persons must be returned.