Baku and Yerevan understand that the West has no sincere desire to help the peace process between them, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
"Unfortunately, both in what the United States and the European Union are doing now, we see less a desire to help negotiate and more a desire to infiltrate the region, a desire to displace the legitimate interests of the Russian Federation and a desire to establish themselves as some forces that will play a crucial role here," the Russian foreign minister told reporters following the meeting of the CSTO Foreign Ministers Council. In his opinion, such Western actions reflect a desire "to expand into regions that are far away from the borders of NATO and European Union members, and this has little to do with a sincere desire to help stabilize the situation.
"Our partners in both Yerevan and Baku, I hope, understand this. At least we are frankly discussing with them what is happening," Lavrov said.
"We are not against other international players trying themselves as mediators," he assured. At the same time, the Russian minister warned: "The most important thing is to ensure that this mediation is geared toward securing agreements reflecting the balance of interests of the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples, the Armenian and Azerbaijani states."
The minister said that "agreements can only be reached by implementing the trilateral agreements signed by the presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan and the prime minister of Armenia."
Lavrov recalled that normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan was achieved thanks to the personal involvement of Russian President Vladimir Putin in November 2020, when the first trilateral statement on the principles of the final settlement was signed. Lavrov also drew attention to the fact that several more trilateral statements were then adopted at the highest level, which focus on various aspects of the efforts that are needed to fully normalize the situation. "This also concerns the unblocking of transport and economic communications between Armenia and Azerbaijan, in the South Caucasus in general," he clarified.
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Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS