The second president of Armenia, the leader of the “Armenia” alliance, Robert Kocharian, has stated that he considers the return of Armenian prisoners from Baku possible within a reasonable period of time, but he is convinced that the current authorities of Armenia are not properly dealing with this issue.

According to him, the representatives of the government insist that they prefer not to talk publicly about the issue of prisoners, calling it “delicate”, and they try to solve the issue “without noise”, but the recent remarks of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to the people of Artsakh prove that the problem is not only inaction. According to him, the authorities are not interested in the return of the Armenians in Baku, fearing the appearance of authoritative figures in Armenia who can unite those forcibly displaced from Artsakh around certain goals.

He called the fact that in the so-called “peace” agreement, which will not lead to real peace, there is no mention of prisoners. Kocharyan believes that the Armenian side should have made it a condition of the negotiations and, for example, before signing the documents in Washington, demanded the release of at least a few people, because even after the territorial concessions, Armenia did not receive anything in return.

Kocharyan emphasized that the release of prisoners should become a mandatory part of the future negotiations on the peace treaty. At the same time, he refused to specify specific dates for a possible solution to the issue, saying that he cannot promise a release in two, three or five months, but he is sure that the problem can be solved in a reasonable time, and he sees real opportunities for it.

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