Azerbaijan’s state security service said that he was detained in the Lachin corridor and taken to Baku. It gave no reason for the arrest.
“Vardanyan was handed over to relevant state bodies so that they make a decision regarding him,” the APA news agency quoted it as saying.
Baku also circulated a photograph of a handcuffed Vardanyan escorted by Azerbaijani officers at an unspecified airfield.
Vardanyan’s Russian wife, Veronika Zonabend, appealed for his immediate release shortly before the official confirmation of his arrest.
“Ruben stood with the Artsakh people during the 10-month blockade [by Azerbaijan] and suffered along with them in the struggle for survival,” she said in a statement. “I ask for your prayers and support to ensure my husband’s safe release.”
Vardanyan was appointed as Karabakh’s state minister last November a few months after relocating to Karabakh and renouncing his Russian citizenship. The Azerbaijani government condemned his appointment, saying that it was engineered by Russia. Moscow denied that.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in February that he will be ready to negotiate over the “rights and security of Karabakh’s Armenian minority” only if Vardanyan resigns and leaves “our territory.” Although the latter was sacked a week later, Baku never lifted its blockade of the Lachin corridor.
Vardanyan, 55, is a former investment banker who made his fortune in Russia in the 1990s and 2000s. He is also known as a philanthropist who has financed many charity projects in Armenia and Karabakh.
Vardanyan has been increasingly critical of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in recent months, repeatedly denouncing his recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. Just hours after his arrest, the Armenian government asked the European Court of Human Rights to order Baku to urgently provide information about his whereabouts and detention conditions.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry said it will do its best to try to secure the prominent tycoon’s release and expects the support of Russia and “other international partners” in that endeavor.
“The Armenian Foreign Ministry has repeatedly stressed the necessity of unimpeded movement of people from Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia through the Lachin corridor,” it said in a statement to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Karabakh’s current leadership did not immediately react to the arrest that came during an ongoing exodus of Karabakh’s population resulting from Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive.
Vardanyan is the first Karabakh leader taken into Azerbaijani custody since then. It was not clear whether other current and former Karabakh officials could also be arrested in case of leaving Karabakh. Baku had issued arrest warrants for some of them.
Meanwhile, Moscow pointedly declined to comment on the arrest. “I don't have such information, so I can't say anything about that issue,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists.