Azerbaijan has placed former Armenian presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan on a “wanted list” for having committed crimes against the constitution and laws of Azerbaijan.

The APA today reports that the Azerbaijani Military Prosecutor’s Office (MPO) has convicted the two former Armenian presidents for inciting national enmity and hatred between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples in 1988 in Stepanakert.

Chief of the Azerbaijani MPO’s Special Investigation Department Emil Tagiyev told APA that Kocharyan and Sargsyan are guilty of laying the groundwork for the breakaway "Nagorno-Karabakh Republic" and for other actions since.

Kocharyan’s office issued a statement arguing that Baku is now following the lead of the Pashinyan government in persecuting the former president.

“The Armenian authorities, who are begging for peace from Azerbaijan at the cost of national dignity, are receiving help from their educated and constructive friends,” reads the Kocharyan office statement.

Serzh Sargsyan’s office described Baku’s accusation “ridiculous and cynical”.

“Cynic, because Aliyev, who has mastered the policy of genocide over the years, whose hatred of Armenians has become a state policy inside Azerbaijan throughout his tenure, has no moral right to speak about Serzh Sargsyan, let alone to accuse him,” reads the statement released by Sargsyan’s office.

The statement says that Sargsyan will continue to fight for the rights of the Armenians of Artsakh and adds there it is not coincidental that the “capitulating” Pashinyan administration and the Azerbaijani regime are targeting Sargsyan in tandem.

The statement says the Pashinyan government and the Azerbaijani ruling clan have become “de facto allies.”

“Neither the administration inside Armenia nor those pursuing him from outside Armenia will be able to stop Serzh Sargsyan from carrying out his mission,” the Sargsyan statement reads.