David Vardanyan made the appeal in an op-ed article published on Thursday on the website of the U.S. Fox News Channel and titled: “My dad has been in prison for more than 550 days simply for being Christian.”
“Personally, I am alive because my great-grandfather was saved by an American orphanage organized by Christian missionaries in Etchmiadzin, Armenia,” he wrote. “Today, we see signs that Armenians are again not alone. Most importantly, President Trump has vowed to protect persecuted Armenian Christians in Azerbaijan and beyond.”
“My family and I look to the leadership of President Donald Trump to fulfill his commitment as a President of Peace. He can do this by making the regime in Baku understand that it must adhere to international rules and show its commitment to peace in the Caucuses by releasing my father and the other Armenian prisoners,” added Vardanyan Jr.
At least 23 Armenians are known to remain in Azerbaijani captivity. Among them are eight former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh, including Ruben Vardanyan, who went on trial in January together with eight other Karabakh Armenians.
Azerbaijan - Ruben Vardanyan stands trial in Baku, March 11, 2025.
Vardanyan, who held the second-highest post in Karabakh’s leadership from November 2022 to February 2023 and is being tried separately, has rejected a long list of accusations levelled against him. Those include “financing terrorism,” illegally entering Karabakh and supplying its armed forces with military equipment.
Vardanyan’s American lawyer, Jared Genser, said last month that the release of his client and other Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan is a “top priority” for the Trump administration.
In a March post on X, the then U.S. national security adviser, Mike Waltz, urged Baku to “release the prisoners.” Walz’s call contrasted with the U.S. State Department’s subsequent cautious comments on the issue cited by the Catholic News Agency,
Like Armenian opposition leaders and other domestic critics of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Genser has repeatedly accused Armenia’s government of doing little to try to have the prisoners freed.
Pashinian has said that his government will make only “proportionate” and “reasonable” efforts for that purpose. He has also claimed that Yerevan will harm the prisoners if it acts more forcefully. Critics say that he is simply afraid of angering Baku.
Mane Tandilian, a leader of an Armenian opposition party linked to Vardanyan, decried on Friday the fact that a draft peace treaty finalized by Baku and Yerevan in March does not call for the release of the prisoners.
“With their behavior, the [Armenian] authorities demonstrate that they are not interested at all in the release of those people,” Tandilian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.