Azerbaijan on Friday opened war crimes trials against Armenian separatists who led the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region before it was recaptured by Baku in a lightning offensive in 2023.

Nineteen Armenian human rights NGOs and individual advocates on Friday jointly appealed to international organizations and foreign ambassadors in Azerbaijan, urging them to oversee the trials of

Vardanyan served as the number-two official in Karabakh from late 2022 until February 2023. Seven months later, Azerbaijan recaptured the enclave where ethnic Armenians had enjoyed three decades of de facto independence since breaking away from Baku's control in a war that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.