Armenia and Azerbaijan are still far from reaching an agreement on several key directions toward the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. 

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov stated the aforesaid at Monday’s joint news conference with his Azerbaijan counterpart Elmar Mammadyarov, reported RIA Novosti news agency of Russia.

“We hope that the Karabakh conflict will be settled,” said Lavrov. “This is proved by the results of the long years of contacts, owing to which a common understanding of key issues that are subject to settlement was managed to be developed. This, first and foremost, is both the security issues and the humanitarian issues. The matters of returning the regions which now are around Karabakh and are not controlled by Azerbaijan. This is also the matter of determination of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh; surely, by considering the people living there. This is also the harmonization of the standards of the international peacekeeping forces.”

“We have reached an agreement,” in most of these directions, noted the Russian FM.

“But two to three specific topics, which are crucial for the final package, are not yet discussed” he added. “I will not lie. We are still far from the situation when the parties will develop a joint approach in these directions.”

In Sergei Lavrov’s words, two to three core issues of the conflict settlement still require extra effort.