By Alexander Pracht
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan publicly addressed the ongoing trials of Armenian detainees in Baku for the first time in an international forum, speaking from the podium of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva Monday.
During his address, Mirzoyan highlighted the plight of all officially confirmed Armenian prisoners currently held in Azerbaijan.
“At this very moment, sham trials are being conducted in Azerbaijan against 23 Armenian individuals who have been arbitrarily detained, disregarding human rights standards necessary for due process,” Mirzoyan said.
Among those currently facing trial are three former presidents of the now-defunct Artsakh Republic and its former cabinet leader Ruben Vardanyan, who has been on hunger strike since last Wednesday to protest against pressure and illegalities directed toward him. Azerbaijan detained these individuals in September 2023 as they were trying to leave the ethnically cleansed region along with roughly 100,000 local Armenians. Baku has since brought numerous serious charges against them, including terrorism and separatism.
In an interview published last month, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addressed the trials of Artsakh’s leadership in Baku, citing intelligence reports suggesting that Azerbaijani authorities might be using prohibited psychotropic substances to extract testimonies from Armenian detainees for potential future use against Armenia.
In his UN speech, Foreign Minister Mirzoyan also addressed prospects for peace, once again raising concerns about Azerbaijan’s territorial claims against Armenia:
“Statements from our eastern neighbor continue to question Armenia’s territorial integrity, despite mutual recognition of borders based on the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration, which, among other things, reaffirmed that the administrative boundaries of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Soviet Republics are the international borders of our independent countries.”
Mirzoyan reiterated that Armenia has sent proposals to Baku regarding both a normalization deal and the opening of transit routes with mutual arms control. However, Azerbaijan has not responded for months, he added.
“We are convinced that constructive responses from both sides, further engagement, and political will would greatly contribute to opening a new era of peace in our region. In this context, I would like to once again reaffirm Armenia’s readiness to turn the page of hostility and establish institutionalized peace. We are not only ready for this but will not deviate from this path,” Foreign Minister stressed.
Unresolved provisions of the normalization deal include the withdrawal of claims from international courts and the exclusion of third-country forces from the borders. Azerbaijan has also set preconditions for Armenia to amend its constitution and to agree to disband the OSCE Minsk Group, a negotiation mechanism set up in the 1990s to resolve the Karabakh conflict.
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