Russian President Vladimir Putin believes that the settlement in the South Caucasus will make relations between Moscow and Baku even closer.
"I very much expect that the work in general to resolve the situation in the South Caucasus will certainly benefit our bilateral relations," the Russian head of state said at talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev. "I assume that this settlement will allow us to build our relations not only in the economic but also in the humanitarian sphere on a more systematic basis," Putin underscored.
According to the Russian Leader, "relations between Russia and Azerbaijan are developing very successfully". He said that "this first of all refers to the economic component" since the two countries "have a lot of areas of joint work and many overlapping interests in the direction of economy".
The Russian president thanked Aliyev for coming to Moscow. According to the Russian head of state, "the most important event of last year is the difficult situation and its heavy course in Nagorno-Karabakh." "I want to express my satisfaction that it was possible to stop the fighting, the bloodshed," Putin stressed. He drew attention to the role of the peacekeeping mission, noting that "the situation as a whole is gradually normalizing."
"The fact that today we have signed a joint statement based on the desire to settle the situation in the long term is extremely important," the Russian president stressed.
Speaking about bilateral relations between Russia and Azerbaijan, Putin thanked Aliyev for "the joint work that is related to the way the 75th anniversary of the victory in the Great Patriotic War was celebrated." "It was a very bright event for all our countries in the post-Soviet space because we all took part in the fight for the freedom and independence of our common homeland then," Putin noted.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: official website of the President of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS