ArmInfo.Today, on May 12, marks the 26 years of the trilateral agreement between Yerevan, Baku and Stepanakert on a ceasefire in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone.
To recall, on May 5, 1994, in the capital of Kyrgyzstan, Bishkek, with the mediation of Russia, Kyrgyzstan and the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the CIS, Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia signed a protocol based on which a ceasefire agreement was reached on May 12 of the same year, which is valid to this day.
On May 12 of the same year, in Moscow, then Minister of Defense of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan, Minister of Defense of Azerbaijan Mammadraffi Mammadov and Commander of the NKR Defense Army Samvel Babayan held a meeting, at which the parties confirmed their commitment to the ceasefire. On July 27 and August 28 of the same year, the parties reaffirmed their desire to abide by the ceasefire, up to the signing of a peace treaty.
The negotiation process to resolve the conflict began in 1991. On September 23, 1991, in Zheleznovodsk, a meeting of the presidents of Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Armenia took place. In March 1992, the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was established to resolve the Karabakh conflict, co-chaired by the United States, Russia and France. In mid-September 1993, the first meeting of the representatives of Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh took place in Moscow. Around the same time, in Moscow, a private meeting was held between President of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev, and then Prime Minister of Nagorno-Karabakh, Robert Kocharyan. Since 1999, regular meetings of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia have been held.