Robert Kocharyan, Second President of Armenia, and Hayastan Dashinq’s Prime Ministerial Candidate, called acting PM’s Pashinyan’s proposal to exchange his son for all prisoners-of-war in Baku a cheap populist trick, reports Sputnik Armenia.

“The issue of prisoners is one of the most scrupulous. I met with the parents of the prisoners in Gyumri. Until now, the public does not know how many prisoners, how many missing there are from the Armenian side, and this is a shame,” said Kocharyan at a meeting with residents of Talin in the Aragatsotn region on Thursday.

According to the Former President, the parents of the missing are in a very serious condition, they have no information. It is even difficult to discuss anything with them.

Kocharyan considers the most terrible thing that the state does not take any steps to change the situation. He said he is convinced that international structures should increase pressure on Azerbaijan to resolve this problem. He wonders what the Foreign Ministry and the parliament, headed by the speaker, have been doing all this time.

“The prisoners are being held in order to get additional concessions from us. We must do everything to make them understand that it is pointless to hold the prisoners,” Kocharyan said.

Kocharyan stressed that it is his opinion that the Armenian Authorities are not doing anything to return the prisoners and are shifting the responsibility onto the shoulders of the commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, Rustam Muradov, adding that “in the 21st century, no one acts like that.”

To note, Third President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, proposed that Pashinyan give his son prisoner in exchange for 20-25 soldiers held in Azerbaijan. In response to this proposal, the acting PM expressed his readiness to hand over his son in exchange for all the prisoners.