Yerevan says release of Armenian prisoners key to ‘genuine reconciliation’ with Baku
Armenian Parliamentary Speaker Alen Simonyan has said that the release of Armenian detainees held in Azerbaijan and clarification of the fate of missing people should be achieved in order to ‘achieve genuine reconciliation’.
The remark was made at the Assembly of the Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) in Istanbul, Turkey.
Azerbaijan has officially acknowledged holding 19 Armenian detainees, including former political and military leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh, who are serving sentences on various charges.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
In January, Azerbaijan handed over four Armenian prisoners. Following the release, Azerbaijani government sources communicated to pro-government media that there was ‘no possibility’ that former Nagorno-Karabakh leaders and ‘individuals who committed crimes against the Azerbaijani people’ would be released.
As for missing persons, Armenia has around 1,000 people unaccounted for since the conflict with Azerbaijan began in the late 1980s,, while Azerbaijan reports approximately 4,000 missing. In June 2025, Armenia and Azerbaijan’s commissions on missing persons held a meeting.
Simonyan’s Thursday speech focused heavily on the peace process, stating that ‘after decades of suspicion and ill will, a new era of confidence-building has dawned’ on Armenia and Azerbaijan.
He highlighted progress on regional connectivity, particularly the Trump Route (TRIPP), describing it as a ‘milestone’ with the ‘potential to promote stability, economic cooperation, and prosperity across the South Caucasus and beyond’.
Simonyan also pointed to the start of limited trade between Armenia and Azerbaijan in late 2025 — the first since the early 1990s — calling it an ‘encouraging sign of normalisation’.
Aytan Farhadova
Referring to the Washington summit in August 2025, where a peace treaty was initialled and an agreement on the Trump Route was reached, Simonyan said that ‘peace has prevailed in our region, marking a truly monumental achievement’.
He added that Armenia’s vision ‘is grander’ and included inviting Turkey to take part in regional peace efforts.
‘To this end, we are eager to deepen our relationship with Türkiye’, Simonyan said.
Armenia and Turkey have been engaged in a renewed normalisation process since 2022, including meetings of special envoys on normalisation at their shared border and in their respective capitals. However, diplomatic relations have not yet been established, and the land border remains closed.
In 2022, the sides agreed to allow third-country nationals and diplomats to cross the land border, but Turkey has since stated progress in the Armenia–Azerbaijan peace process is a precondition for further achievements in the normalisation process with Armenia. Turkey originally closed the border in 1993 during the First Nagorno-Karabakh War.
Arshaluys Barseghyan
This year, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Special Envoy Ruben Rubinyan will sit out the Antalya Diplomacy Forum taking place 17-19 April, in which they have participated since 2022. Instead, Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan is expected to represent Armenia.
The Foreign Ministry has declined to comment on the decision in response to media inquiries. While Rubinyan, attending the forum in 2025, met his Turkish counterpart Serdar Kilic during the event.
On the sidelines of the IPU assembly, Simonyan also met with Azerbaijani Parliamentary Speaker Sahiba Gafarova. According to the Armenian readout, the sides ‘stressed the importance of continuing constructive parliamentary dialogue to further strengthen trust between the two societies’.
