Hraparak daily of the Republic of Armenia RA writes as follows, in particular: According to our information, on August 30, a telephone conversation took place between SC [i.e. the Security Council] Secretary Armen Grigoryan and [Azerbaijani president Ilham] Aliyev's advisor Hikmat Hajiyev; moreover, at the initiative of the Azerbaijani side.

The conversation was about the Armenian captives in [Azerbaijani capital] Baku. Apparently, the reason for the phone call was the phrase uttered by US President Donald Trump in Washington, when, addressing Nikol Pashinyan, he said: "Are you talking about the 23 Christians [i.e. Armenian captives in Azerbaijan]? I’m going to ask him [apparently referring to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev] to do it. I think they’ll do it for me."

Probably, that request was made, and Hajiyev called the RA official to refuse not Trump, but "spineless Armenians." According to our information, he said in direct text that Azerbaijan will not be able to fulfill Trump’s demand and release all Armenian prisoners and prisoners of war. He also expressed dissatisfaction [with the fact] that the representative of Armenia used the phrase “Christian prisoners” in Washington.

He stated that “this harms the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.” It is clear that the representative of the RA government, which is already frightened and concedes to Azerbaijan in everything, was worried by this phone call and calmed down the interlocutor. We were told that the RA government now especially does not intend to fight for the [Armenian] prisoners in Baku now.

But [Armenian PM Nikol] Pashinyan hopes that before the [parliamentary] elections [next year] he will succeed in returning at least someone in order to present this to the public as a political victory and evidence of carrying out work in that direction.