Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with members of families of Armenian servicemen and civilians missing or captured in the Artsakh war.

Addressing those present, the Prime Minister said, “Dear compatriots, first of all I would like to apologize to all of you for the fact that so far the state agencies have not been able to answer your questions. Realizing that there are objective and subjective reasons for that, today we held a consultation in the government, and my main message concerning the current situation is as follows: When looking from aside one can get the impression that there is a divide between the government and you. It is first of all our fault indeed, but I want you to be sure that we keep in mind your feelings. We could not hold such a meeting as far as the war continued, which is again our fault, for which I apologize again.

Today’s consultation focused on one thing: each of you must feel every day that the government stands by you, your family members, as we all share your grief. Let us all agree that we will give up that practice despite the fact that the government is to blame for that. Once again, I want to apologize because there is no difference between my family members and yours.

We should communicate with each other in this mode, realizing that the government does not want to hide anything: we want to do our best for you, since we have a common problem, a common pain, a common grief. In other words, no matter where we are sitting now, we should talk openly and honestly about everything.”

Nikol Pashinyan assured that he will communicate with everyone during such meetings, which will be continuous. “I formulated the problem in the following way: I said these people should not come over every other day, instead we should be calling on them every day. The impression is that there are barricades between the government and the citizens. This is not the natural course of public affairs. We literally have to stand this bitter test together, this is a challenging period, but we have to continue to live with the assumption that, yes, this is a common problem; it affects all Armenian families. We perceive this as our common pain. I hope that at least a large number of people - our brothers - will be back and we will rejoice at it,” the Prime Minister said.

The Head of Government listened to those present, provided clarifications and answered their questions. Nikol Pashinyan suggested that representatives of families of missing persons should be engaged in the proceedings of the interdepartmental working group to ensure sustained communication and feedback on the work being done.