Armenia’s Foreign Ministry on Tuesday strongly condemned Azerbaijan’s recent decision to issue arrest warrants for two former Armenian presidents—Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian—as well as Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan.
After announcing last week the intention to “arrest and prosecute” Harutyunyan on charges that he ordered the bombing of Gyandja during the 2020 War, Azerbaijani prosecutors on Monday revealed that warrants have been issued for the arrests of Kocharian and Sarkisian for their role in the 1988 Artsakh Liberation Movement and the 1991 creation of the Artsakh Republic.
Both Sarkisian and Kocharian dismissed the announcement, with Sarkisian’s office calling it a “caricature.’
“We strongly condemn these criminal prosecutions initiated by Azerbaijan on these trumped-up and anti-Armenian grounds, as well as similar abuses of international legal procedures,” Armenia’s foreign ministry said in its statement Tuesday.
“Instead of trying to find the individuals responsible for the extrajudicial killings of Artsakh civilians, the forced disappearances of Armenian prisoners of war, as well as the criminal networks that brought terrorists to the region, Azerbaijan is pursuing its anti-Armenian policy in Nagorno Karabakh with a new impetus, making new attempts to raise tensions on Armenia-Azerbaijan border,” the foreign ministry added.
Yerevan also called on on Azerbaijan “to seek constructive solutions and to take steps to protect the rights and well-being of the entire population of the region,” while reaffirming Armenia’s “commitment to making efforts for peaceful coexistence and mutual tolerance in the region.”
Armenia’s office of the prosecutor-general on Tuesday said it would work to counter Azerbaijan’s attempts to arrest the two former presidents of Armenia in a third country.
Gor Abrahamyan, a spokesman for Armenia’s Office of the Prosecutor-General, dismissed the arrest warrants as baseless and illegal. He said the law-enforcement agency will press Interpol and other international bodies to deny Azerbaijan any help in detaining Kocharian and Sarkisian.
“These are effective measures that produce results,” Abrahamian told Azatutyun.am’s Armenian Service. “As far as international manhunts are concerned, our efforts to block those proceedings have been a success.”
The Artsakh National Security Service on Monday said that it is fully equipped to not only protect the well-being of Harutyunyan, but also every citizen of Artsakh.
In addressing the arrest warrants, both Sarkisian and Kocharian said that the current corruption cases against them were also fueling Azerbaijan’s agenda.
Sarkisian’s office, in a statement, claimed that the current Armenian authorities are now effectively allied to “Azerbaijan’s ruling clan,” reported Azatutyun.am.
“The Armenian authorities, who are begging for peace from Azerbaijan at the cost of national dignity, are receiving help from their ‘educated and constructive’ friends,” Bagrat Mikoyan, a Kocharian spokesperson, said in a statement, adding that the Azerbaijani warrants come amid Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan continuing “filtration” with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Azatutyun.am reported Monday.
