YEREVAN, DECEMBER 14, ARMENPRESS. A three-day mourning period in honor of the victims of the Artsakh war will be declared in Armenia and Artsakh from December 19, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and the President of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan announced. Memorial ceremonies will take place during those days.

“December 19th will mark the 40 days since the end of the military operations. And on this occasion a three-day mourning will be declared from December 19, and also a memorial march will be organized in Yerevan from the Republic Square to Yerablur,” PM Pashinyan said.

Other remembrance ceremonies will take place in the country. Pashinyan said that it is likely that all bodies of the missing troops will be retrieved by then. “We will have many unidentified bodies, but I believe that this kind of a state decision cannot be delayed any longer,” Pashinyan said.

He added that the authorities are intensifying the search of bodies, the MIAs and the identification process.

In turn, Artsakh’s President Arayik Harutyunyan said that he and the Prime Minister of Armenia have agreed to declare the three-day mourning in Artsakh and Armenia to commemorate the memory of the war victims.

“Their names will always be in our hearts and in the chapters of the Armenian history, obliging us to continue their patriotic work in our future path. Therefore, it will be a mourning of pain, pride and duty for the Armenian nation,” Harutyunyan said.

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan