Today in Moscow we held a series of meetings dedicated to the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the Karabakh settlement. First, separate bilateral meetings were held with my colleague from Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Bayramov, and my colleague from Armenia, Ararat Mirzoyan. Then the three of us met. This was announced by the Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov based on the results of Friday’s tripartite meeting in the Russian capital.
"We have exchanged assessments regarding the situation that is being formed between the President of the Russian Federation Putin, the President of Azerbaijan Aliyev, and the Prime Minister of Armenia Pashinyan in the context of the work towards the implementation of the agreements reached after November 2022.
"These agreements refer to ensuring security and stability in Karabakh. They also refer to the unblocking of [regional] transport and economic communications. A tripartite working group, headed by the deputy prime ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, is dealing with it. The settlement of humanitarian issues is part of the agreement. First of all, it is about border delimitation, with subsequent border demarcation. Therefore, by a separate statement of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, an Armenian-Azerbaijani border delimitation commission was established, with the participation of the Russian side as a consultant," the Russian FM said.
"The peace treaty is a separate topic. The parties have started working towards it, and it is now being actively discussed, including with the engagement of other mediators. The Armenian and Azerbaijani [foreign] ministers left for Washington [recently], the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan were in Brussels a week ago.
"The work on the peace agreement is undoubtedly fundamental. However, our partners confirmed today that without border delimitation, unblocking of transport and economic communications, without general improvement of the security situation in Karabakh and on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, it is difficult to move forward with the specific aspects of the peace treaty.
"A complex discussion of all this took place. The partners expressed gratitude to the Russian side for the leading role in the common efforts, which are embodied in the mentioned tripartite statements of our leaders and the contacts that continue in each of the directions I mentioned," Lavrov noted.
"The meeting of the tripartite group led by the deputy prime ministers, on the issues of unblocking transport communications, should take place next week. We hope that there will be a positive result. The parties are already close to the final agreement. They agreed to hold a meeting, in the near future, of the bilateral commission on border delimitation and demarcation issues, with the advisory participation of the Russian Federation.
"With the peace treaty and a number of articles that were discussed today, it was possible to bring the mutual understanding of both sides closer to the common vision. Now the bilateral meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan has started, after which they will inform us about the results they have achieved.
"Our [i.e., Russia’s] task was to provide a platform for a bilateral meeting. We presented our approaches. We hope that this event will enable the ongoing talks between the [foreign] ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia to achieve practical results. We will continue to contribute to the progress in order to fully implement all the provisions of all tripartite statements, which are the basis for fully implementing the efforts aimed at the normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations," the Russian FM stated.
