Haydar Aliyev Recognized Artsakh as a Negotiating Party as Early as 1993, Kostanyan Says

The newspaper "Zhoghovurd" reports that it turns out that as early as 1993, Azerbaijani President Haydar Aliyev recognized Artsakh as a negotiating party. This revelation was made by former Prosecutor General of Armenia Gevorg Kostanyan during a conversation with "Zhoghovurd" newspaper, where he disclosed an important document.

In 1993, former Azerbaijani President Haydar Aliyev ordered a meeting to be organized with the leaders of Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (see the photo). "The leadership of Azerbaijan guarantees that the head of the Supreme Body, A. Jalilov, will conduct negotiations regarding a meeting between the leaders of Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic," he noted.

And if Baku forgets about this, the Armenian side reminds them of this important episode, which could simply create a turning point in the negotiations. Moreover, with this document, Azerbaijani President Haydar Aliyev effectively recognized Artsakh as an independent state. In this format, agreements on the establishment of a ceasefire between these two entities were reached around 12 times, while according to Kostanyan, there is no treaty on maintaining the ceasefire regime between the Republic of Armenia and Azerbaijan until the main ceasefire agreement was signed.

According to him, the fact that the Republic of Artsakh acted as a subject of legal relations is confirmed by another iron argument, which is that the main ceasefire agreement was signed not only by Armenia and Azerbaijan but also by Nagorno-Karabakh.

In his conversation with "Zhoghovurd" newspaper, Gevorg Kostanyan also recalled the agreements reached in the framework of the execution process of the ruling "Chiragov against Armenia" during the meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Council of Europe, which concerns the direct involvement of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, including the acquisition of international rights and obligations, regarding which the arguments of the Azerbaijani ambassador and the representation of the government were rejected.

In other words, this document legally confirms that Artsakh was perceived as a negotiating party and an independent state as early as years ago. "I believe that these are legal arguments that are imperative to be used in this phase of negotiations. If they are not used, it has a different legal classification..."

For more details, see today’s edition of the newspaper.