Azerbaijan continuously makes the subject of missing persons an object of speculation, trying to create the impression that only it has that problem, and as if Armenia is unconstructive in the context of solving this humanitarian issue. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced this at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting of the Armenian government—and referring to the statements made by Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday.

“Meanwhile, this is an equally urgent and painful problem for the Republic of Armenia. The number of missing persons of the Armenian side from the first Karabakh war is 777, from the 44-day war—203. We even have 16 missing persons since September 13, and the bodies of these soldiers are in the territories that appeared under Azerbaijani rule, and Azerbaijan is delaying their return to Armenia using all possible methods and fictitious pretexts. And since 2020, the Armenian side has returned to Azerbaijan 130 bodies of the missing persons from the first war and actively continues the work in this direction, which is extremely difficult due to the lack of any processed information,” the Armenian PM added.