Political scientist Gagik Hambaryan provided us with a few important documents, according to which Azerbaijan’s leadership had de jure recognized the independence of the NKR long before. “Information, according to which Azerbaijan recognized the independence of the NKR in such and such year, has been circulating in both the Azeri and the Armenian press for one year now; even archive material is being spread on websites and social networks.
“Shavarsh Kocharyan, our Deputy Foreign Minister, giving an interview last year, put forward a document, according to which Azerbaijan recognized the independence of the NKR on September 3, 1993. However, I must state that both the Armenian side and the Azeri side provide somewhat wrong information. To begin with, we have to clarify one thing that recognition is of two types – de jure and de facto. That the NKR has existed for 20 years now is a fact, which nobody can deny. And that the NKR hasn’t de jure been recognized by the international community so far doesn’t correspond to reality, because at the most intense moments of the NKR conflict when the Azeri army was suffering one defeat after another, that same Azeri elite, that same current Minister of Defense Safar Abiyev, that same Heydar Aliyev who is considered to be the Ataturk of the Republic of Azerbaijan, so to speak,
requested a ceasefire and negotiations from the NKR government. I can present a document, which has the Azeri Defense Minister’s signature on it, is addressed to the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia, Karen Baburyan, and is dated July 24, 1993 (see documents).
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“The content is as follows: if both sides agree, military operations will be ceased for 3 days; the treaty enters into force as of July 24, 1993, 4 p.m. They had been negotiating before that too; the first document was on June 17. We must state that one day before this document, the Armenians had conquered Aghdam, a very important Azeri outpost, after 40 days of fierce fighting. A lot of people think that the Azeri Defense Minister unintentionally sent that letter to the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia or was poorly informed. However, I think that this was a special step, so that the Armenians were not able to prove afterwards that the Azeri government recognized the NKR as far back as in 1993 and negotiated with it, because Safar Abiyev and these letter writers of his knew quite well that Karen Baburyan had nothing to do with the Armenian Supreme Council and was the acting NKR Supreme Council Chairman.”
According to the political scientist, the government of the Republic of Armenia replied to the Azeri side that Karen Baburyan had nothing to do with the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia, and on the following day, July 25, a letter with the same content was sent to Samvel Babayan, the NKR Defense Minister, on behalf of Azeri Defense Minister Sabar Abiyev. “I am asking now: ‘If the Azeri Defense Minister sends a letter-request for a ceasefire, what is it, if not a document on de jure recognition of the NKR’s independence by Azerbaijan?’ This is at the level of the defense minister,” Gagik Hambaryan says.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
