Relatives of missing soldiers are demanding that the new Armenian parliament publish a report on the 44-day war around Artsakh.

ArmInfo. Relatives of soldiers missing in action during the 2020 war around Artsakh held a press conference outside the Armenian parliament, demanding that the new legislature publish the report of the investigative commission on the 44-day war and determine the causes of death of their loved ones.

In a conversation with journalists, political activist Mikael Margaryan recalled that they had previously demanded the publication of the report, but after the parliamentary elections in the country, this issue faded into the background, and their demand, according to him, went unheeded. "However, today we have a new parliament, so we are presenting this same demand to the new National Assembly," Margaryan noted.

According to him, the main demands of the protesters are to hold parliamentary hearings and demand the publication of the report. The activist also noted that they are primarily counting on the position of the Strong Armenia faction.

Lawyer Harutyun Baghdasaryan, in turn, presented the contents of the collective petition they intend to submit to parliament. He recalled that the investigative committee was supposed to submit a report to the National Assembly of Armenia. According to him, if the report was not published within the prescribed timeframe, the committee was supposed to establish the reasons and punish those responsible for making such a decision.

"However, the previous parliament never published the report." Former Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Alen Simonyan sent the document to a special department. This does not satisfy the public, since we proceed from one fundamental principle: if parliament was formed by law, then no one has the right not to publish a report prepared by that same law. In this regard, we intend to submit a collective petition to the new parliament, in which we demand that the speaker of parliament and the leaders of the parliamentary factions reconsider the position of the former speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia on this report, raise and discuss the issue of its publication, cancel the decision to classify the report, and then make it public,” the lawyer stated.

The petition, according to him, is addressed to Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Ruben Rubinyan, Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National Assembly on Defense and Security Vilen Gabrielyan, head of the Civil Contract parliamentary faction Arusyak Manavazyan, head of the Strong Armenia faction Narek Karapetyan, head of the Armenia parliamentary faction Anna Grigoryan, as well as David Hambaryan, Chief of Staff of the National Assembly of Armenia.

Furthermore, Baghdasaryan announced that on October 13, the Anti-Corruption Court will hear their appeal regarding the investigator's refusal to initiate criminal proceedings on facts the relatives consider critical for clarifying the fate of their children, as well as the decision of the Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia upholding this refusal. The lawyer noted that they demand that the perpetrators be held accountable.

Arsen Ghukasyan, the uncle of a serviceman who went missing during the 44-day war, stated that their goal is to identify those they believe were involved in the treason, achieve justice, and bring the perpetrators to justice. "We have reasonable suspicions that treason occurred at the highest level during the war." For example, there are suspicions, and, as I already said, well-founded ones, that the maps of the State Security Headquarters ended up in the hands of the Azerbaijani side. We must finally understand how they ended up in the hands of the Azerbaijani side and how the enemy was able to precisely target our troops' positions. They won't be able to deceive us. My brother was killed (Arman Ghukasyan - ed.). Shouldn't I know whose fault it was? Let them answer," Ghukasyan stated.

It should be noted that after this, those gathered submitted their statement to parliament.

                As a reminder, the commission investigating the circumstances of the war unleashed by Azerbaijan on September 27, 2020, was established by the National Assembly of Armenia in February 2022. Commission members reviewed dozens of hours of video recordings and classified documents, and heard testimony from dozens of invited officials, including Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. In the second ten-day period of 2025, it was announced that the report was ready, but it will not be made public because it contains classified elements. Some members of the Armenian opposition are inclined to believe that the report is not being published because it does not exist and no actual investigation was conducted.