Armenia wants to communicate directly with the Turkish side in order to normalize relations. This was stated by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov at the press conference following the ministerial meeting of the 3+3 South Caucasus regional consultative platform Friday in Istanbul, Turkey.

According to him, Russia has actively contributed to the start of this process, Iran also has joined it, but now no respective meetings are planned.

"Armenian partners have taken a break. They believe that now it is necessary to communicate directly with the Turks and determine what needs to be done. The normalization of Yerevan-Ankara relations is in any case related to the Armenian-Azerbaijani [peace] negotiations. So, it was proposed at the meeting to comprehensively discuss these issues and to encourage the involved countries to reach an agreement as quickly as possible," Lavrov said.

And Russia and Iran, for their part, are ready to assist if there will be an interest of the direct participants, the Russian FM concluded.