The Baku regime is deliberately targeting former Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan, who is currently detained in Azerbaijan on trumped-up charges, former human rights defender Artak Beglaryan said on Thursday. man from Artsakh.
Since various international organizations focused on Ruben Vardanyan, the Azerbaijani authorities have demonstrated a “special” negative attitude towards Ruben Vardanyan,” said Mr. Beglaryan, who also served as Minister of State before Mr. Vardanyan, during a press conference.
“Of course, such an attitude exists towards all political leaders, but it is greatly accentuated in the case of Ruben Vardanyan, since his lawyers and family have fought these criminal cases more publicly and aggressively,” he added.
Mr. Beglaryan said that all criminal cases brought by Azerbaijani authorities against the former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh were fabricated. The accusations relate in particular to terrorism and the financing of terrorism.
“In no case can we equate the struggle of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh with terrorism, because from a military point of view, we were in a state of self-defense, while the rest was entirely a political struggle, whose leaders were the former officials who are now in Baku prisons,” Mr. Beglaryan said.
Mr. Vardanyan’s legal team previously issued a statement saying that, in an unprecedented escalation of the crackdown on dissent, Azerbaijani prosecutors had unveiled a new set of some 45 potential charges against him. against Mr. Vardanyan, who had been illegally detained. If convicted, Vardanyan faces life imprisonment.
Mr. Beglaryan also said that 16 prisoners of war were currently detained in Azerbaijan, without any charges being brought against them.
He was also asked about the ongoing talks regarding a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Mr. Beglaryan estimated that a peace agreement was far from being signed, given Baku’s positions on these issues.
“This possible document cannot be a treaty or a peace agreement. At best, it will be a document on the restoration or normalization of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but nothing more,” Beglaryan said.
According to him, a peace agreement involves a document that addresses and resolves all key elements of the conflict.
“At a minimum, all major issues in this conflict should be addressed at a fundamental level. The issue of prisoners is one of the smallest. This is the easiest to resolve,” said the former Minister of State.
The Armenian side, he added, has, for example, the question of the return of the inhabitants of Artsakh to their homeland, the protection of their property, their cultural heritage, etc.
Speaking at the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting on December 5, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said that Armenia and Azerbaijan have made some progress towards signing a peace agreement, noting that the parties had already agreed on 15 of the 17 articles of the preamble and the draft agreement. With sufficient political will, the agreement can be quickly finalized and signed.
Earlier, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that one of the disagreements was over the non-deployment of third-country forces on the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and the second was over the withdrawal of legal proceedings initiated by both parties before international courts.
