Chairman of the Federation Council Valentina Matviyenko urged the participants of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to refrain from any harsh statements and maintain the established fragile peace, moving toward a final settlement of the situation in the region.
"The main thing now is to refrain from any harsh statements, maintain the fragile but still peace that has been established and move toward a final settlement and the removal of tension in the region," Matvienko said at a meeting with Armenian National Assembly Speaker Ararat Mirzoyan on the sidelines of the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly in St. Petersburg.
"Not only Armenia and Azerbaijan need it, but Russia also needs it, all regional states need it," she added.
The Speaker of the Federation Council noted the important role now played by Russian peacekeepers. "Our peacekeepers are not only carrying out their mission, but also assisting, ensuring the safety of the return of refugees from both sides, assisting in the reconstruction of infrastructure, destroyed houses, responding to all requests," she said.
"The important thing is that the bloodshed has been stopped, the dialogue has been moved to a political peace. This is a victory of sanity. Now it's very important to continue the same dialogue in order to remove the remaining sensitive issues step by step. Undoubtedly, they have their place," she said.
In addition, the Speaker of the Federation Council stressed that the issue of prisoner exchange was on the agenda. "Russia initially took the position of exchanging everyone for everyone. The process is underway. If I'm not mistaken, more than 50 Armenian prisoners of war have returned home," Matvienko noted.
The situation over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated on September 27, 2020. Baku and Yerevan have been disputing the region's belonging since February 1988, when it announced its secession from the Azerbaijani SSR. On November 9, a trilateral statement was signed by the president of Russia, the president of Azerbaijan and the prime minister of Armenia. According to the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the occupied positions, a number of areas came under Baku's control, and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the line of contact and the Lachin corridor.
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Photo: Stanislav Krasilnikov / TASS
Based on materials from TASS