Jared Genser, the international lawyer representing former Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) state minister Ruben Vardanyan who is illegally held in the Azerbaijani capital of Baku, has made a new post on X.

Genser wrote as follows, in particular: “I couldn’t agree more with Armenia Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that he should make ‘proportionate’ & ‘reasonable’ efforts to free my client Ruben Vardanyan & the other Armenian Christian political prisoners & POWs detained by Azerbaijan. That is precisely why all the items on this list come exclusively from examples of the kinds and of things other governments have done over my 25 years of experience working to recover foreign hostages.  Surely Armenian hostages deserve at least as much help as what other governments provide, no?

For example, when I represented two American hostages in Iran Sia Namazi & his Dad, the U.S. had a State Envoy on Hostage Affairs working on the case, the White House & State Department met regularly with the family of my clients, including with the Secretary of State, the U.S. had a U.S. Interests Section at the Swiss Embassy in Iran advocating for improved prison conditions and trying to monitor the trials, the President and the Secretary of State spoke out publicly, U.S. diplomats advocated at the UN & with its allies asking for help, the U.S. asked for support from global religious leaders, and the U.S. imposed sanctions on Iranian officials responsible for the hostage taking.

This was all reasonable and proportionate for the United States. Yet to my surprise, as far as I can tell, Armenia has done none of these kinds of very basic things for the Armenian hostages in Azerbaijan.

So I ask Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan - do you agree doing these things are reasonable and proportionate or are you really saying that the kinds of efforts President Donald Trump has been taking to recover American hostages like Marc Fogel & Amcits from Belarus and Venezuela have been unreasonable and disproportionate?”