We are confident that during your visit to Azerbaijan, you will be able to secure the release of all 19 Armenian Christian prisoners and hostages held in Baku
THE HONORABLE JAMES DAVID VANCE
VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500, USA
Dear Mr. Vice President,
In your remarkable book “Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and a Culture in Crisis,” you wrote about your people: “An intense sense of loyalty, a fierce dedication to family and country.” As I read these lines, I thought that you could just as well have been writing about Armenians.
Although our nations are separated by oceans, we recognize and understand one another. We know what it means to preserve faith even when everything is against you, and we fully understand the value of family.
It is precisely for this reason that I am addressing you with this letter.
We highly appreciate and deeply value the efforts undertaken by you and President Trump last spring to prevent a new act of aggression against Armenia, which resulted in the signing of the “TRIPP” project.
During your upcoming visit to Armenia, you may be told many things, but not about the primary issues that truly concern our society.
With the greatest respect, I would like to kindly remind you of the Armenian prisoners of war and hostages illegally held in Azerbaijan, as well as the torture they have endured. They are Christians whose only “crime” is their faith and national origin.
Since 2021, Azerbaijan has also occupied more than 200 square kilometers of the sovereign territory of Armenia, as a result of which our border population lives under constant anxiety and their security remains severely undermined.
Our team also possesses evidence regarding the ethnic cleansing carried out by the Azerbaijani armed forces against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in September 2023, as a result of which 120,000 people were forcibly displaced from their centuries-old homeland within just a few days.
We are ready to transfer the special files we have prepared to your team. They may prove useful in shaping the United States’ policy position in the region.
You and President Trump have an incredible record of action. President Trump brought home prisoners of war who were even considered lost. Together, you prevented aggression against Armenia last spring, when the Biden administration took no such steps. These are not words, but concrete results – and Armenians all over the world see and remember this.
We are confident that during your visit to Azerbaijan, you will be able to secure the release of all 19 Armenian Christian prisoners and hostages held in Baku. Such a step would bring hope and justice to thousands of Armenian families and would resonate widely throughout the global Armenian community.
U.S. efforts to establish lasting peace will succeed when Azerbaijan withdraws from Armenia’s occupied territories and the natural rights of more than one hundred thousand forcibly displaced Christian Armenians are restored․
Our people and Armenians around the world would regard such an action by you and President Trump as heroic, and your names would remain forever on the pages of our history.
I am convinced that an alliance between our two freedom-loving nations, in the name of peace, prosperity, and the preservation of faith, can open a new era in the Caucasus and the wider region. Armenia is ready to be part of that future – not as a supplicant, but as a full-fledged partner.
Your Mamaw used to say: “God helps those who help themselves.” That is exactly what we are doing -helping ourselves – and we firmly believe that God has sent us friends.
We look forward with great anticipation to your upcoming visit to Armenia and the region.
With highest consideration,
Mr. Arman Tatoyan
Head of the “Wings of Unity” Political Initiative
Former Human Rights Defender (Ombudsman) of the Republic of Armenia (2016–2022)
