Only thing that remained
Fifteen years ago this day Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic signed a trilateral ceasefire.
"It is clear that this is the only thing that has remained from the accomplishments. I am talking about political, diplomatic achievements and not military because all the other achievements went to waste during the past 11 years," representative of the Armenian National Congress, ambassador with special assignments during the ceasefire treaty David Shahnazaryan.
According to him, the ceasefire treaty was signed due to the synchronization of political, diplomatic and military operations by which the then Armenian authorities were able to force Azerbaijan to agree to a ceasefire. Although the regime is infringed very often these days, it is evident that the end to military operations helped avoid deaths from both sides and secure the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Former RA Foreign Minister Vahan Papazyan attached importance to the trilateral ceasefire agreement.
"The trilateral format was established for the first time with this ceasefire agreement."
He recalled Azerbaijan's failed attempts to change the format. "In January 1995, Azerbaijan tried to avoid this format several times and tried to bring forward the idea of engaging the Azeri community, but it was once again thanks to Armenian diplomats that in early March 1998 the OSCE confirmed again that the format must be trilateral. This format, however, has been forgotten for the past ten years."
David Shahnazaryan recalled that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic has not participated in the talks for 11 years after Robert Kocharyan decided to remove it from the process.
