“There are 777 missing Armenians from the 1st Nagorno-Karabakh war, 217 from the 2nd NK war, and 29 missing Armenians from the September 13th aggression of Azerbaijan against Armenia,” he wrote on Twitter. “We hope Azerbaijan will cooperate in clarifying the destiny of our compatriots.”
Pashinian spoke of 28 soldiers and two civilians still listed as missing when he addressed a summit of ex-Soviet states in Kazakhstan last week. He said that at least several of those soldiers are definitely dead as their bodies are lying in no man’s land in contested border areas.
“There is an agreement to organize the recovery of the bodies in the coming days,” he said. “I hope that this agreement will be fulfilled.”
The Armenian Defense Ministry said on Wednesday that despite a “preliminary understanding” reached by the two sides Azerbaijan has still not allowed its search teams to recover the bodies of Armenian soldiers.
“So far the Azerbaijani side has impeded the conduct of search operations in the occupied territory of Armenia,” the ministry spokesman, Aram Torosian, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
At least 208 Armenian soldiers were killed or went missing during two days of heavy fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijan border which broke out late on September 12.
Azerbaijani forces attacked and seized Armenian army positions at several sections of the long border. Baku has acknowledged 80 combat deaths in the Azerbaijani army ranks.