Baku refused to talk to Samvel Babayan and Vitaly Balasanyan – Mass media

Baku/18.10.23/Turan: In September, during full–scale hostilities in Karabakh, Azerbaijan refused to negotiate with two former security forces - Samvel Babayan and Vitaly Balasanyan for a ceasefire, the Yerevan edition of "Zhokhovurd" with reference to its sources reported on October 18.

According to this information, separatist leader Samvel Shahramanyan contacted the deputy of the State Security Service of Azerbaijan during the escalation on September 19. He offered to cease fire and start negotiations with Samvel Babayanov as the chief negotiator from the Armenian side.

According to the publication, the Azerbaijani side disagreed, "calling Babayan a liar and a disinformer and offering to send him to Armenia." Then Shahramanyan proposed Vitaly Balasanyan, to which Baku also did not agree.

Azerbaijan eventually rejected all the candidates, stating that it requires only one thing – to sign a statement on the dissolution of Nagorno-Karabakh, after which the fire will be stopped. As a result, it happened, the newspaper writes.

From all this situation, one question remains unclear: why Baku allowed Babayan and Balasanyan, who actively fought against Azerbaijan and were involved in the occupation of vast territories of Azerbaijan, to leave Karabakh. So Samvel Babyan was the commander of the Karabakh forces during the first Karabakh war. In 1992, he commanded one of the units that occupied Shusha.

Vitaliy Balasanyan is involved in the capture of Khojaly and the mass killings of Khojaly residents. He also commanded his detachment, which was supposed to restrain the Azerbaijani forces from Aghdam, who were coming to the aid of the Khojaly residents. It was on the territory of the Askeran region controlled by Balasanyan that the mass killings and captivity of hundreds of Khojaly residents took place. ---02D---