U.S. President Donald Trump said he will personally ask Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to release 23 Christian Armenian prisoners, who are being held in prisons in Baku, Azerbaijan, including the former leaders of the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).
This took place during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and U.S. President Donald Trump’s bilateral meeting in the Oval Office of the White House. The video was released on Facebook by Pashinyan.
Trump said to Pashinyan, “So you said there’s 23 Christians that you’d like to get out, right? 23? Because I’m going to ask him [Aliyev] to do that. I think he’ll do it for me too.”
Pashinyan responds: “Ya.”
Trump continues: “That’s important if you could, right?”
Pashinyan responds with a nod and a confirmation.
Jared Genser, the international lawyer representing Ruben Vardanyan, said: “A big step forward towards securing the release of my client Ruben Vardanyan, the former State Counselor of Nagorno-Karabakh, and one of 10 political prisoners & POWs in Azerbaijan.”
The political prisoners unjustly held by the Aliyev regime in Baku, Azerbaijan are the former leaders of Artsakh — including former presidents Arkadi Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan, and Arayik Harutyunyan; former State Minister Ruben Vardanyan; Foreign Minister Davit Babayan; former Speaker Davit Ishkhanyan; and other senior officials — all detained following Azerbaijan’s September 2023 assault on Artsakh, which came after a nine-month blockade and the mass ethnic cleansing of its over 100,000 ethnic Armenian population. They now face sham trials and fabricated charges that could result in life imprisonment, in proceedings widely condemned as political persecution.
