Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov will hold talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov in Moscow on Friday. This meeting will be the second in a month for the ministers.
The day before, Lavrov and Bayramov spoke by phone. They expressed regret over Armenia's decision to refuse to participate in the talks on a peace treaty between Yerevan and Baku, scheduled for December 23 in Moscow. On December 22, it became known that the Armenian side because of the situation in the Lachin corridor asked to postpone the planned meeting.
The situation with the Lachin corridor
The problem of relations between Baku and Yerevan will be the main issue at the meeting between Lavrov and Bayramov. The topic has been at the top of the agenda recently.
On December 12, a group of Azerbaijanis, who introduced themselves as environmentalists, blocked the Lachin corridor, where Russian peacekeepers are temporarily deployed. Baku stated that the goal of the protest was not to block any road, and civilian vehicles could move freely in both directions. The Lachin corridor is the only road linking Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Yerevan saw this action as a provocation by Baku, which aims to create a humanitarian disaster in the unrecognized republic.
On December 14 Armenia appealed to the European Court of Human Rights, demanding to oblige Azerbaijan to unblock the Lachin corridor. On December 15, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that blocking the Lachin corridor in Karabakh caused a humanitarian crisis. Pashinyan expressed dissatisfaction with the actions of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh in connection with the incident. Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said Russian peacekeepers do their best to maintain order in the regions they work in, and said Moscow and Yerevan would continue talks about this issue.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said that Moscow is concerned about the blockage of the Lachin corridor and expects "to restore full-fledged transport communication in the nearest future."
On the way to a peace treaty
The Russian side has repeatedly expressed its readiness to provide all possible assistance to the delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the preparation of a peace treaty between Baku and Yerevan. On October 31, Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan met in Sochi and adopted a joint statement. Among other things, it noted that Azerbaijan and Armenia had agreed to refrain from the use of force.
In early December, it became known that Armenia had received proposals from Azerbaijan on a draft peace agreement. On December 22, Pashinyan said that Yerevan passed the proposals for a peace agreement to Baku and "is ready to sign a treaty with such content".
As Lavrov stressed during his December 5 talks with Bayramov, Russia is ready "to assist in every way possible to unblock transport ties, to delimit the border, to conclude a peace agreement and in general to strengthen confidence-building measures" between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The events of December make Moscow's mediation efforts and the importance of discussing this topic at the new talks between the foreign ministers of Russia and Azerbaijan more topical.
Bilateral agenda
Despite the busy regional agenda, Lavrov and Bayramov are expected to focus on Moscow and Baku's bilateral ties at the meeting.
Director of the 4th CIS Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry Denis Gonchar told TASS in an interview that trade turnover between Russia and Azerbaijan is breaking records this year and could reach $4 billion ($3.4 billion in 2021). An important milestone was the signing of a bilateral declaration on allied cooperation by Presidents Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev on February 22.
Moscow traditionally notes the successful development of cooperation with Baku at the inter-regional and parliamentary levels, as well as in humanitarian and cultural spheres.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS