YEREVAN. – The issue of captives is not the issue that any opposition force will be able to resolve in any way; the state must deal with this. Robert Kocharyan, the second President and leader of the “Armenia” bloc—which will run in the snap parliamentary elections on June 20—, stated this during a meeting with the residents and this bloc’s active members at three administrative districts of the capital Yerevan.

"Now, if any opposition force decides to take any step [towards resolving the captives’ issue], they [the authorities] will accuse [it] and say, 'You are hindering.' They even tried to tell the relatives of the captives that, ‘If the opposition is staging demonstrations on [Marshal] Baghramyan [Avenue—across the parliament building—], thus it prevents us from dealing with the [issue of] captives.’ And with that, they were trying to turn those people against the opposition field. There are no rallies now. What are you not dealing [with this issue]? Instead of dealing with that, you are having more captives. This is the issue that we can try to urge—only through our personal connections—in Russia that something must be done.

What depends on us, we do it; but this is a pure state function. We still do not even know the exact number of [Armenian] captives [in Azerbaijan]. They say it is a secret. What secret?" Kocharyan stated.