The Russian side considers the visit of journalists from Armenia and Karabakh to Azerbaijan, and from Azerbaijan to Armenia and Karabakh as an indicator of the intention of the parties to contribute to establishing contacts, said Russian MFA spokesperson Maria Zakharova in Moscow.

According to her, at the meeting initiated by the Russian FM Sergei Lavrov in April, the Armenian and Azerbaijani FMs agreed to begin practical work on a number of humanitarian issues. Among them are mutual trips of media representatives. This was agreed at the last summit in March in Vienna. Such visits took place on November 17-21 with the coordinating role of the personal representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.

“We consider this joint event as an indicator of the intention of the parties to facilitate the establishment of contacts between Armenians and Azerbaijanis. We believe that such humanitarian actions aimed at preparing the population for peace should be continued. And we will certainly support them,” she said adding that among the possible areas of humanitarian measures could be the facilitation of the fate of persons imprisoned on the territory of the conflicting parties, as was stated in the Moscow statement of the OSCE Minsk Group ministers and co-chairs. For my part, I want to say once again that we will continue to provide the parties with the necessary assistance,” she said.