Armenia Condemns Azerbaijan’s Criminal Prosecutions Against Arayik Harutyunyan, Serzh Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan

YEREVAN — The Armenian Foreign Ministry has strongly condemned the criminal prosecutions of Artsakh President Arayik Harutyunyan and former Presidents of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan, by Azerbaijan.

The comments come after Azerbaijan declared it had put the three on wanted list.

The Ministry said the prosecutions are fabricated and dictated by anti-Armenian considerations.

“Instead of trying to find people involved in the extrajudicial killings of civilians in Artsakh and the forcible disappearances of Armenian prisoners of war, or exposing the criminal networks of bringing terrorists to the region, Azerbaijan is pursuing its long-standing policy of Armenophobia and is undertaking new attempts to aggravate tensions on the border,” the Foreign Ministry said.

It called on Azerbaijan to seek solutions in the constructive field, to take steps to protect the rights and well-being of all the peoples of the region.

“At the same time, we reaffirm the commitment of the Republic of Armenia to make efforts for the establishment of peaceful coexiste

Meanwhile, Armenian prosecutors on Tuesday pledged to thwart Azerbaijan’s stated attempts to arrest the former Presidents 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 Kocharyan and Sargsyan.

“These are effective measures that produce results,” Abrahamyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “As far as international manhunts are concerned, our efforts to block those proceedings have been a success.”

In the wake of the 2020 war, Armenian law-enforcement authorities likewise opened several criminal cases against Azerbaijani government and military officials accused of committing war crimes. But they have still not named any of those officials.