Human Rights Lawyer Says Trump Administration Poised to help Armenian Christian POWs

Now, Genser said release of the prisoners is “a top priority for the new administration.”

“We have been told that their freedom needs to be a precondition for President Trump to ultimately bless a peace deal,” Genser revealed.

“I think that’s a really important development because our biggest fear all along has been that if a peace deal were to proceed, and there was no resolution of Nagorno-Karabakh or of the Armenian Christian POWs, then unfortunately, it could lead to a sacrificing of those prisoners as a part of the peace deal.”

Neither of these critical issues are contained in the current peace deal, nor are they on the bilateral agenda, according to Genser. However, he said there are many things the Trump administration can do to push for these ends.

Genser declined to say what specific methods should be employed to apply pressure on Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev for the POWs, though he encouraged the Trump administration to “shock” Azerbaijan’s president, whom he described as a dictator.

“At the end of the day,” Genser said, “dictators only release political prisoners when they have to. They never do it because they want to or because they’re magnanimous or humanitarian by orientation.”

“The only way that happens is when the dictator sees the cost of detaining the political prisoner or political prisoners as being dramatically higher than the benefits of detaining them.”

Beyond the situation faced by Armenian POWs in Azerbaijan, Genser said there are “many issues outstanding in terms of the conditions of the peace deal as well that are worrying.”

Chief among them are Aliyev’s demands that Armenia cede the Lachin Corridor, giving him a pathway to lay a pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey via Armenia, and that Armenia remove a preamble in its constitution that lays a territorial claim on Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The problem with that is that one has never seen any peace deal in the world where a country gives up their sovereign land and cuts off part of their own population from the main part of the country, which is what this would do,” Genser said.

As the Jamestown Foundation pointed out in its analysis of the peace deal, the Armenian government’s messaging on this front has been mixed, with Pashinyan having in the past stated Azerbaijan’s constitution contains territorial claims rather than the other way around, while also advocating as recently as March 13 for constitutional amendments that would have “inherently regional significance.”

“Unless Azerbaijan withdraws its long-standing demand that the Armenian Constitution be changed, it is unlikely to be signed before mid-2026 or even 2027,” the article noted.

Amid the dispute, Azerbaijan has accused Armenia of violating its ceasefire agreement — which Armenia denies — augmenting further tension between the countries as the fate of political prisoners hangs in the balance.

When asked about the plight of Armenian Christian POWs, the State Department told CNA: “We continue to monitor the situation closely through our embassies in the region. All those detained should have their human rights respected and, if criminally charged, have all fair trial guarantees afforded to them.”

Genser said peace will not be possible until “all relevant issues and all relevant potential provocations have been identified, negotiated, and fully addressed as part of a peace deal itself.”

“A peace deal that leaves unresolved what the future is going to look like for the people of Nagorno-Karabakh and the release of the Armenian Christian POWs is a recipe for future flare-ups, disagreements, and even potential war,” he said.