Trump Says He Will Ask Aliyev to Free Armenian POWs
Pashinyan Tells Trump He Did not Want the Prisoners’ Issue to be Included in White House Document
President Donald Trump said he will personally ask his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, to release the 23 Armenian prisoners — among them the former Artsakh leaders— who currently are being held captive in Baku.
Trump made the announcement on Friday during his meeting with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the Oval Office.
“So you said there’s 23 Christians that you’d like to get out, right? 23? Because I’m going to ask him [Aliyev] to do that. I think he’ll do it for me too,” Trump is heard on a video of the meeting released by Pashinyan on social media.
Pashinyan tacitly responds “Yeah,” with Trump asking, “that’s important if he could, right?”
Pashinyan responded with a tacit nod of approval, after which he told Trump that he advised “not to put [the prisoners’ issue” in” the agreement, according to another version of the video published on social media.
It was unclear whether Trump was going to ask Aliyev as a personal favor or based on human rights considerations.
During a press conference on Friday after signing a peace agreement pledge with Aliyev at the White House, Pashinyan told reporters that “there are no negotiations in which we do not raise the issue of our compatriots held captive in Azerbaijan.”
“This topic has been discussed and addressed at the highest level. I will not go into further details. Given my previous experience, I will not say anything about the results of these discussions. Unfortunately, since there has been no result yet — what we are expecting has not happened — we must understand that there is no outcome so far. But we have raised, are raising, and will continue to raise these issues at the highest level,” Pashinyan added.
Responding to claims that Pashinyan had opposed raising the issue of the captives’ return in Washington, the prime minister’s spokesperson, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, wrote on Facebook that “the matter was brought up during the meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump precisely at the initiative of Prime Minister Pashinyan.”
“Absurd speculation is circulating online, claiming that the prime minister opposed the return of our compatriots held in Azerbaijan, or some of them, during his visit to Washington. The prime minister has repeatedly stated that Armenian representatives raise this matter in all formats of their meetings and seek solutions. In the meeting with U.S. President Donald Trump, the issue was discussed entirely at Prime Minister Pashinyan’s initiative, and he spoke about it in full, not partially,” Baghdasaryan said.
