Ruben Vardanyan’s Wife Asks to Join Alen Simonyan on Possible Visit to Azerbaijan

The wife of imprisoned former Artsakh official Ruben Vardanyan has asked to join Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan on any visit to Azerbaijan, urging him to press Baku over the treatment and release of Armenian prisoners.

Zonabend said she learned of the possible trip through media reports and welcomed Simonyan’s willingness to visit Azerbaijan. She said the trip could offer a rare opportunity to address the prisoners’ treatment and give their families direct contact with relatives they have been unable to see.

“I am personally ready to travel with you to Baku,” Zonabend wrote. “I know that the families of the other prisoners share this desire as well.”

She asked Simonyan to consider including relatives of the prisoners in the delegation and to help arrange meetings with those being held.

Zonabend also asked whether Simonyan plans to visit Armenian prisoners while in Baku. Before any trip, she said, she wants him to meet with their families, hear their concerns and take letters to deliver to their relatives.

“For our families, the opportunity to see our loved ones, learn about their condition and personally convey words of love and support is of tremendous importance,” she said.

The appeal points to one of the most sensitive unresolved issues between Armenia and Azerbaijan as the two governments pursue a peace process: the fate of Armenians imprisoned in Baku.

It also puts Simonyan’s more recent statements on the prisoners under renewed scrutiny.

Zonabend recalled that Simonyan has described humanitarian issues as critical to achieving peace and has said the urgent and safe return of Armenian prisoners should be a priority.

Those remarks stand in sharp contrast to comments Simonyan made in a privately recorded conversation in December 2021, when he was speaker of Armenia’s parliament.

In the recording, Simonyan said of Armenian POWs, “I consider those prisoners to already be gone. They do not exist for me.”

He went on to accuse some captured servicemen of laying down their weapons and fleeing rather than defending their positions, saying their families knew they had deserted.

The comments caused an uproar in Armenia. Relatives of POWs and missing servicemen gathered outside parliament demanding an explanation, while critics questioned how Simonyan could characterize captured soldiers as deserters before their individual circumstances had been established.

Simonyan responded that the video had been edited and said his remarks concerned the state’s approach to negotiations and different circumstances surrounding soldiers who ended up in captivity. He nevertheless maintained that some soldiers and officers had failed to perform their duties, abandoned their positions, laid down their weapons and surrendered.

Nearly five years later, Simonyan is now Armenia’s Security Council secretary and could find himself traveling to the country where Armenian prisoners remain behind bars.

On Sept. 3, asked about a possible trip to Azerbaijan, Simonyan told reporters, “I do not rule out a visit to Azerbaijan.”

Zonabend said she hopes that, if the trip goes ahead, it produces more than political talks.

She asked Simonyan to respond to the families and discuss how the visit could be turned into what she called a “concrete humanitarian step.”

Vardanyan was detained by Azerbaijani authorities on Sept. 27, 2023, at the Lachin Corridor as he attempted to leave Nagorno-Karabakh following Azerbaijan’s military offensive and the mass displacement of the region’s Armenian population.

A court in Baku sentenced him to 20 years in prison in February 2026. Vardanyan has rejected the legitimacy of the proceedings and did not appeal the verdict.

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