“[Azerbaijani] officials communicating with us were hinting, indirectly telling us that ‘you will be kept here as long as the Armenian authorities want,’” he said in the audio message communicated to his family by phone and posted on social media. “At first, we didn’t pay attention and I wondered how that could be the case, why our authorities would not want us to return. But from the current standpoint, it’s already clear that unfortunately that is the case.”
Ishkhanian based his claim on ongoing “political developments in Armenia” where voters will elect a new parliament on June 7. He pointed to what he called fresh untrue claims about Karabakh Armenians, an apparent reference to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s statements made on the campaign trial.
Pashinian lashed out at Karabakh’s “pseudo-elites” when he bitterly argued with an exiled Karabakh Armenian activist in Yerevan on May 18. He said they must “shut up” and “get the hell out” of Armenia.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian shouts threats against his critics during an election campaign event in Yerevan, May 18, 2026.
The activist, Artur Osipian, was arrested and indicted right after the incident. Ironically, Osipian has for years challenged Karabakh’s former leaders, including those remaining in Azerbaijani captivity. The latter were captured right after the 2023 Azerbaijani offensive that restored Baku’s full control over Karabakh and forced the region’s Armenian population to flee to Armenia.
Five of them, including Ishkhanian, were sentenced to life imprisonment while the three others received 20-year jail sentences in February at the end of yearlong trials denounced by Amnesty International as a “travesty.” They all denied a long list of accusations brought against them.
Pashinian and other Armenian officials insist that Yerevan has been doing its best to try to secure the release of these and 11 other Armenian prisoners held in Azerbaijan. Their critics dismiss these assurances.
Pashinian last week blamed Armenian opposition groups and the Dashnaktsutyun party in particular for their continuing imprisonment. He claimed that Baku is reluctant to free them because Dashnaktsutyun, of which Ishkhanian is a member, promises to retake Karabakh if it comes to power. The pan-Armenian party’s leadership denied the claim, saying that it is only championing the Karabakh Armenians’ right to return to their homeland.
Ishkhanian, who served as Karabakh’s parliament speaker, on Wednesday again condemned his and the other prisoners’ trials. Two other former Karabakh leaders, Ruben Vardanyan and Davit Babayan, also accused Azerbaijani authorities of continuing to violate their rights in similar audio statements issued from an Azerbaijani prison this month.