Speaking at a news conference after his meeting with Iranian counterpart Hossein Amir-Abdollahian on Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he had discussed with his Iranian colleague the initiative to establish a "3 + 3" talks format with Azerbaijan, Armenia, Georgia and Turkey—and with respect to the issue of unblocking the economic and transport links in the region, TASS reports.

Lavrov noted that Moscow had played a key role in ending the recent hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) and signing a trilateral agreement, at the level of the prime ministers of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia, under which a Russian peacekeeping force has been deployed in the region.

"Besides, the same joint statement contained principles that determine the joint steps for the settlement, advancement, including the work aimed at unblocking all transport communications in the region, which will benefit not only Armenia and Azerbaijan, but also Georgia. Iran, Russia, and Turkey will also benefit from it as the closest neighbors of those three republics," the Russian FM said. "Today we discussed the initiative to create a ‘3 + 3’ format; the three Transcaucasian countries, and their three large neighbors: Russia, Iran, and Turkey."

According to Lavrov, the Iranian side has expressed a positive attitude towards this concept, and the same attitude is observed in Azerbaijan and Turkey, too.

"We are working [also] with our Armenian colleagues [in this regard]. We hope that Georgia, in spite of all the problems it faces, will be able to see its fundamental benefit in establishing such a mechanism for consultations and coordination of decisions in connection with the accelerated development of this region, which has long stalled its development due to ongoing conflicts here," Sergey Lavrov added.