United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres was asked in Yerevan on October 15 what the UN would do about the 19 Armenians Azerbaijan has unlawfully held since its ethnic cleansing of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), and he did not answer.
“I am a strong supporter of the peace agreement,” Guterres said at the press conference, adding that he hoped its provisions would be carried out. “I’m very hopeful that things will move fast in order to complete the peace agreement.”
Asked by News.am whether the UN would take any concrete step toward the prisoners’ release, Guterres said only that it is “a matter of great interest to us.”
Pressed on why the UN was not putting more pressure on Azerbaijan’s president, he pointed back to the agreement.
“We call on all parties to implement all provisions of the agreement as quickly as possible,” he said, “including those concerning detained persons.”
Asked how peace could hold while the men remain in Baku, he said the prisoners are “only one of the directions, and there are other directions.” He called the unresolved matters regrettable and said he hoped they would be settled quickly.
Guterres did not say what the UN itself is doing. He was in Yerevan for the leaders’ summit ahead of COP17, the United Nations biodiversity conference Armenia hosts at the Meridian Expo Center from October 19 to 30.
The Agreement He Pointed To Is Yet to Be Signed, and Pashinyan Wants It Signed by 2031
Pashinyan and Aliyev initialed the peace agreement at the White House on August 8, 2025, with President Donald Trump as mediator. What they signed that day was a joint declaration and a joint appeal to the OSCE to close the Minsk Process. The agreement itself has yet to be signed or ratified.
Neither the agreement nor the declaration signed alongside it obliges Azerbaijan to release the prisoners.
Azerbaijan has conditioned signing on Armenia amending its constitution to remove the reference to the 1990 Declaration of Independence, which mentions Artsakh.
Hours before Guterres spoke, Pashinyan told a Cabinet meeting that signing and ratifying the agreement is the top priority of the government’s 2026 to 2031 program.
“I have also set this task for myself, with a specific timeline: to achieve its resolution by 2031,” Pashinyan said, adding that he sees the possibility, and that otherwise he would not have said it aloud.
The day before, he described what he expects Armenia to look like once the treaty is signed: a territory of 29,743 square kilometers fixed by delimitation and demarcation under the Alma-Ata Declaration, regional roads unblocked, and the enclave and exclave question settled by territorial exchange, with neither side holding claims against the other.
Azerbaijan Is Holding 19, and 8 of Them Led Artsakh
Azerbaijan seized the 8 former leaders in September 2023, as its offensive drove the entire Armenian population of Artsakh, 120,000 people, out of their homeland in a week.
A court in Baku sentenced 5 of them to life in February: former president Arayik Harutyunyan, former Defense Army commander Levon Mnatsakanyan, former first deputy commander Davit Manukyan, former foreign minister Davit Babayan and parliament speaker Davit Ishkhanyan.
Former presidents Arkadi Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan received 20 years each, as did Ruben Vardanyan, the businessman who served as state minister. Vardanyan was convicted on more than 40 counts including “financing terrorism” and “creating illegal armed groups.”
Among the others, Madat Babayan and Melikset Pashayan were given 19 years each, Garik Martirosyan 18, Davit Alahverdyan and Levon Balayan 16 each, and Erik Ghazaryan, Gurgen Stepanyan and Vasily Beglaryan 15 each.
Journalists were barred from the proceedings and the only account of them came from Azerbaijan’s state news agency. Armenian lawyers and human rights organizations have called the trials a sham.
The European Parliament and 101 Members of Congress Have Already Demanded Their Release
The European Parliament adopted a resolution on October 8 demanding that Azerbaijan immediately and unconditionally release the Armenian prisoners it holds.
Days earlier, 101 members of the United States Congress, led by Senators Adam Schiff and Gary Peters and Representatives Gus Bilirakis and Frank Pallone, urged the State Department to help secure the release of the Armenian prisoners illegally held by Azerbaijan and to end Azerbaijan’s military presence on Armenian territory.
No Timeframe Has Been Set, and the Foreign Ministry Calls It a Humanitarian Issue
Robert Abisoghomonyan, Armenia’s deputy foreign minister, was asked on October 14 whether the prisoners could be raised at COP17. He said the ministry has put the matter on various platforms repeatedly, including specialized and sectoral meetings, and that it could come up in bilateral meetings with the high-level delegations arriving for the conference.
“COP17 is mainly dedicated to the environmental agenda,” he said, describing the prisoners as primarily a humanitarian issue handled through humanitarian organizations.
Alen Simonyan, appointed Secretary of Armenia’s Security Council in August, told reporters on October 16 that no timeframe has been set for the men’s return, though he said the matter is worked on daily.
“Didn’t they return prisoners? This is a process,” Simonyan said, and he criticized opposition figures for what he called noise and aggressive statements on the subject.
He said Azerbaijan accuses the prisoners of crimes and has to explain the case to its own society, which he linked to the rhetoric coming out of Baku. Armenia currently holds 1 Azerbaijani prisoner of war, he said.
Simonyan also said he had told Aliyev directly that his statements land hard in Armenia.
“Mr. President, you should know that your statements are perceived extremely sensitively in Armenia,” he said he told him, adding that Aliyev replied, “Okay, fine.”
On Azerbaijan’s decision to skip COP17 in Yerevan, Simonyan said the choice was Baku’s and should not be read into the peace process, and that there is no tension between the two sides and none expected. He said Armenia skipped a summit in Baku in 2019.
He said there are no agreements with Azerbaijan on the enclaves and exclaves, that talks continue on exchanging Tigranashen for Artsvashen, and that no Armenian territory has been given to Azerbaijan and none will be.
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