Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Andrey Rudenko told Kommersant that it doesn’t matter to Moscow whether it will take part in the specification of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan or not. The conversation was held along the lines of the conference devoted to Central Asia and hosted by Valdai Discussion Club in Kazan.

“The important thing for us is to see that the process ends as quickly and peacefully as possible,” he said when asked about Russia’s stance on Baku’s statements that the border must be specified through a two-way procedure.

Rudenko also stressed that the statement — signed by the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan on November 9, 2020 — “only concerned Nagorno-Karabakh and didn’t concern the demarcation and delimitation of the state border between Azerbaijan and Armenia”. “The incident that happened has nothing to do with Nagorno-Karabakh. Thus, the Russian peacekeeping contingent can’t play any role in this,” he said.

According to Rudenko, in any case, the outcome “must be an agreement on the state border that has doesn’t exist and has never existed”.