Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan held a meeting within the government with family members of servicemen and civilians captured or gone missing during the Artsakh war.
In his remarks, the Prime Minister, in particular, noted:
«Dear compatriots, first of all I want to ask forgiveness from all of you for the fact that until now our state bodies have not been able to answer your questions. Of course, understanding that there are objective and subjective reasons for this, but today we have held a consultation in the government, and my main message regarding the situation is the following: when we look from the outside, an impression may be created that there is, so to speak, a dividing line between us, on one side of which are you, and on the other side the government:
Regarding that impression, of course, the fault is primarily ours, because that cannot be so. I want you to be convinced that the feelings of you and your family members are in our hearts in the same way, and of course, because of the war it has not been possible to establish this connection earlier, which again is our fault, for which I again ask forgiveness:
Today our consultation has been about one thing: each of you must feel every day that the government is by your side, is a member of your family, lives with your pain, suffers with your suffering. That regime should not exist—you, the police, some state body; let us agree that we are going to come out of that regime, although the guilty ones are us, and I again want to ask forgiveness, because what difference does it make whether it is about a member of my family or yours; there is no difference:
It is precisely in this regime that we must communicate with each other, not a government that conspiratorially hides something, that is going to do something and does not do it conspiratorially, but we have a common problem, a common pain, a common «dart» and we must understand how we are moving forward. That is, there should be no difference in the places where we sit here; we must speak openly and sincerely about everything»:
Nikol Pashinyan noted that he will communicate with everyone during similar meetings, which will be ongoing. «I have formulated the problem in the following way: I have said that those people should not come to us every day, but we should go to them every day. It seems as if there are different barricades and people on different sides; such a thing simply cannot be, by nature it cannot be.
We must, in the truest sense of the word, live through this period together; this is a very difficult period, but we must live with the premise that, yes, this is a common problem, it is not about a member of your family, but about a member of all our families. We perceive this as our common pain, and I hope that we will be able to find and return at least a very large number of people, our brothers, and rejoice on that occasion», the Prime Minister said:
Afterwards, the head of government listened to those present, provided clarifications and answered their various questions. Nikol Pashinyan proposed that representatives of the families of the missing persons be included in the formed interdepartmental working group, which will also ensure constant communication regarding the work being carried out:
