Are there border-crossing Armenian soldiers in Iran? MP Naira Zohrabyan, now formerly of the opposition Prosperous Armenia Party, asked this question on Facebook.

"Many parents [of the Armenian soldiers] who have been missing tell me for a long time that they have reliable information, even phone calls, that their sons crossed the state border with Iran during the [Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh)] war [last fall], from the southern part of Artsakh—from the Jabrayil sector—, and are taken captive in Iran.

I have officially applied [with a letter] to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Iran, and they responded to me that the letter has been received and they will respond to me in a while. There is no response yet.

Through my Russia colleagues, we have contacted several Iranian generals, who also neither denied nor confirmed the information and asked for time to give a clear response.

Naturally, the response of the Ministry of Defense of Armenia that they have no comment on this topic was shocking.

Now I am officially appealing to the Iranian ambassador to Armenia (…) to receive mothers who can pass on certain information about the possible whereabouts of their [soldier] sons in Iran, listen to the mothers, and try to resolve this nightmare that has been dragging on for months," Zohrabyan added, in particular.