Appeal to Steinmeier on the occasion of the visit of the President of Armenia (October 9)

An alliance of human rights organizations is calling on German Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier to use his meeting with the Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan on October 9 to address the fate of Armenian prisoners who are currently held in Azerbaijan. A release of the political prisoners must be part of the peace negotiations between the two states in the South Caucasus, the human rights activists demanded. Approximately 120,000 Armenians were driven out of the region Artsakh / Nagorno Karabakh by Azerbaijan in 2023. 

“The Armenians who – like hostages of the Azerbaijani peace dictate – are currently imprisoned in Baku must be released immediately. The Armenian negotiators must emphasize this strongly. Please speak to Vahagn Khachaturyan about this,” says an appeal to German President Steinmeier, signed by the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP), the Central Council of the Armenians in Germany (Zentralrat der Armenier in Deutschland, ZAD), the “Arbeitsgruppe Anerkennung, gegen Genozid, für Völkerverständigung” (AGA), and the International Society for Human Rights (ISHR).
Currently, at least 23 Armenians from Artsakh / Nagorno Karabakh are in prison, including eight former leaders. “We have the impression that the government has more or less given up on these people. We cannot allow that to happen,” the organizations warned. 

The Federal President should seize the diplomatic opportunity ahead of the COP29 climate conference in Azerbaijan in November, as a means to help bring about an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan – including safety guarantees for Armenia. Further, the regime in Baku should be obligated to release the hostages. Otherwise, the human rights organizations warned, Azerbaijan might attack further areas of Armenia following the COP29 conference. 

Contact details:

Sarah Reinke (STP): s.reinke@gfbv.de or +49 551 49906-13
Dr. Tessa Hofmann (AGA): tessa.hofmann@katwastan.de or +49 30 85 17 974
Valerio Krüger (IGFM): presse@igfm.de or +49 69 420 108-11
Jonathan Spangenberg (ZAD): vorstand@zentralrat.org