ArmInfo.The second president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, is sure that until the Armenian authorities have resolved the issue of prisoners, there should be no steps in further negotiations with Azerbaijan. Kocharyan expressed this opinion in an interview with Hayeli.am, Politik.am and Yerevan.today.
Kocharyan noted that of all the issues, the issue of prisoners is the most sensitive. “The whole problem is the weakness and lack of firmness of the Armenian authorities. Do you really think that Azerbaijan does not know about the number of prisoners, this cannot be true. It's just that Baku is taking advantage of the weakness of Yerevan and the issue of the prisoners is not being resolved, ”the second president of Armenia noted.
According to him, the main task of Azerbaijan is to create obstacles for the replenishment of the Artsakh army.
“The leadership of Azerbaijan has already noted that any soldier in Artsakh is a saboteur and a criminal, and this is not a prisoner of war. I myself, being the president of Artsakh, faced the issue of prisoners of war and I know that this is a huge headache and a very thankless task. I'm just convinced that Aliyev is now under pressure because of the issue of prisoners of war, but he has a number of very specific goals. His goal is to weaken the security system of Artsakh, ”Kocharyan said.
He also said that even if these prisoners were released, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces would make efforts and capture new prisoners. According to the second President of Armenia, this practice can only stop if the country's authorities refuse to send soldiers to Artsakh. Kocharyan noted that all these are very global issues and they should be solved, but the current authorities of Armenia are hardly capable of this.