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Karabakh was left out of the process of negotiations after the 1996 Lisbon Summit. This is what second President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan told analysts during a meeting devoted to the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict posted on the official YouTube channel of Robert Kocharyan, touching upon the statement that he removed Karabakh from the negotiations.

“The meetings of the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan began in 1991. It was a format that remained during the administrations of all presidents, and it would be strange, if the Co-Chairs didn’t try to use international platforms for such meetings. If there is a multilateral meeting, and the presidents are present, it is very natural that the Co-Chairs have to try to sit the conflicting sides down around a table. Therefore, my meetings with Aliyev were nothing new. Karabakh was left out of the process after the Lisbon Summit. In essence, I don’t remember any meeting with the participation of Karabakh in 1997, and the format was simply excluded from the negotiations. I continued the meetings that the first President had had before my term of office. The negotiations started becoming very active in 1995 when presidential advisors Zhirayr Liparityan and Vafa Guluzadeh would meet. The President of Karabakh and I were told about the results of the meetings. In other words, there was a certain format. The process ended after the adoption of the decisions made in Lisbon where Armenia was simply left alone.

I got the impression that the negotiators from the Armenian side didn’t believe that Karabakh can be recognized as an independent state at all. What formats do we have now? The first is the work of the OSCE Minsk Group, that is, the visits to the region and meetings with the Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Karabakh. During my term of office, visits to Karabakh were mandatory, and the Minsk Group would meet with the President of Karabakh in his office. The second format is the meetings between the Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan which continue to this day, and the only difference is that the Prime Minister is attending the meetings on the part of Armenia. The third format is the activities of the monitoring group, which is also working actively with the authorities of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Karabakh. In essence, Karabakh is not part of one the formats, and it is simply wrong to say that Karabakh is not part of the negotiations at all. Karabakh must be brought back to the negotiating table, but I don’t think Azerbaijan will agree. However, it is always necessary to aspire.

In essence, Karabakh has never been out of the process of negotiations. I assumed the presidency in 1998, and Karabakh was not in the previous format, which hasn’t been restored without Karabakh because if the format is restored, it is clear that Karabakh will also be a part of the format,” he said.

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