Why Armenia Won't Free Its Prisoners in Baku
Imagine Ruben Vardanyan riding a horse through Yerevan. Who has a big problem?
The hosts turn to the 20 Armenians held in Azerbaijan documented in the Armenian Cause International dossier, including former Artsakh (Nagorno Karabakh) leaders, and make a pointed accusation. Asbed argues that the Pashinyan government will do nothing meaningful because it is complicit, suggesting it prefers those figures kept in Baku. His image of Ruben Vardanyan riding into Yerevan, and the question of who that would threaten, lands as the provocative core of the segment.
From there the hosts lay out the leverage Armenia chose not to use. Hovik notes that parliament ratified TRIPP outright when it could have withheld ratification to gain clarity on Azerbaijan’s intentions, to secure a final peace deal, or at minimum to tie the concession to the return of prisoners. Instead, as Asbed points out, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan confirmed that Armenia by policy has separated these issues, keeping a peace treaty, the prisoners, and TRIPP from hanging on one another. The hosts frame this as a government conceding everything and demanding nothing.
If you follow Armenian news, prisoners of war, and the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process, this clip connects the human rights crisis to a concrete negotiating failure. The trials were sham proceedings and a PR exercise for Aliyev, with sentences ranging up to life and little independent access. By refusing to condition TRIPP or the peace process on the release of Armenians held in Baku, the government, in the hosts’ telling, forfeited its strongest card. The segment ties the fate of the prisoners directly to the sovereignty and peace debates running through the rest of the episode.
Transcript
Asbed Bedrossian: They want those guys imprisoned in Baku because just imagine Ruben Vardanyan riding on a horse in Yerevan. on a horse in Yerevan. Who has a big problem?
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's the...
Asbed Bedrossian: My mouth is getting tired of talking about this. It's not like Armenia can't do anything.
Hovik Manucharyan: The Pashinyan, yeah.
Asbed Bedrossian: All they have to do is basically say, you know what, I'm not going to sign anything anymore. You're not going to cross Armenia to go to Nakhichevan. No, I'm not going to do this.
Hovik Manucharyan: Yeah, I mean, so, Armenia
Asbed Bedrossian: Until you let those guys go. The initial agreement was all prisoners get exchanged.
Hovik Manucharyan: ratified TRIPP. Yeah. I mean, you could have withheld ratification of TRIPP
Asbed Bedrossian: Everything.
Hovik Manucharyan: for the prisoners.
Asbed Bedrossian: Everything.
Hovik Manucharyan: You could have withheld ratification of TRIPP to get more clarity on what TRIPP actually means and what Azerbaijan's intentions and interpretations of that are. You could have stopped the ratification of a TRIPP in order to actually have a final peace deal. At the worst, if that's a concession of Armenian sovereignty, then at least you could have tied it to the return of prisoners, to the signing of the so-called peace deal. None of that has been done, and Armenia continues to concede.