Simonian is the most high-ranking Armenian official to visit Azerbaijan during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s more than seven-year rule.
In a short statement that announced the visit, the NSS gave no details of Simonian’s itinerary in the Azerbaijani capital. It was not clear whether he will speak during the security forum or hold talks with Azerbaijani officials on its sidelines.
Simonian headed to Baku despite the Azerbaijani authorities’ continuing refusal to free at least 23 Armenian prisoners, including eight former leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh, held by them. An Armenian human rights lawyer claimed earlier this month that some of them attempted to commit suicide recently.
Pashinian’s government has been accused by its critics of doing little to try to secure the release of the prisoners. Pashinian again denied that on Thursday, insisting that the Armenian authorities are doing their best to bring them home.
“Until we achieve an obvious result, I can’t say anything new, including because of the extreme sensitivity of the issue,” he told a news conference.
An Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty initialed during Pashinian’s August 8 talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Washington does not commit Baku to freeing them. The NSS declined to say whether Simonian will urge Azerbaijani officials to do that. Kristine Vartanian, an Armenian opposition parliamentarian, said the prisoners’ release should have been the necessary condition for his three-day trip to Baku.
“Only in this case could such visits be justified,” Vartanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The Armenian government had refused to send any Armenian officials to the COP29 climate summit in Baku last November because of the Azerbaijani side’s refusal to free any of the captives. Hasmik Hakobian, a parliament deputy from the ruling Civil Contract party, declined to say whether Simonian’s visit signifies a change in the government’s position.
“The prisoners is a separate issue,” she said. “Rest assured that that the cooperative atmosphere in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations helps and will help to resolve our outstanding painful issues more quickly.”
Simonian automatically became chairman of an Armenian interagency commission on prisoners and missing persons when Pashinian appointed him as NSS director in June this year. The commission has not met since the appointment.
The announcement of his visit to Baku coincided with the sacking of Edgar Hunanian, the commander of Armenia’s border guard troops subordinate to the NSS. Hunanian has held that position for just over a year. Pashinian’s office gave no reason for his dismissal.
Simonian, 35, is a former judge reputed to be a figure strongly loyal to Pashinian. He joined the NSS as a deputy director of the former Armenian branch of the Soviet KGB in early 2021 after giving incriminating testimony against Ruben Vartazarian, the then head of Armenia’s state judicial watchdog at odds with Pashinian. The testimony was at the heart of criminal charges brought against Vartazarian.
The previous NSS chief, Armen Abazian, was sacked by Pashinian in June the day after NSS officers failed to swiftly arrest Samvel Karapetian, a Russian-Armenian billionaire critical of the prime minister. The masked officers refrained from storming Karapetian’s mansion in Yerevan surrounded by hundreds of his angry supporters. The tycoon emerged from his residence and was escorted to police custody several hours later.