Russia will help Armenia and Azerbaijan resolve the tension on the border if such a request is received from both states, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko told reporters on Monday.
"It is a normal situation when in such circumstances the sides turn to us for help, assistance and mediation. We have some experience in developing statements of November 9 and January 11. So if we receive such an appeal from all the parties, and not only from one of the parties, I mean from Azerbaijan and Armenia, then we will be ready to provide all the assistance we can," he said TASS.
Rudenko said the foreign ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will discuss tensions on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border in Dushanbe on May 19.
"The foreign ministers will gather in Dushanbe to discuss all the issues on the agenda. I do not exclude that this issue will be discussed there," he said, answering a question to TASS. - "I think the main discussion will take place in Dushanbe in the margins of the ministerial meeting".
On May 12, the Armenian Defense Ministry reported that Azerbaijani armed forces tried to carry out "certain works" in one of the border regions of the Syunik region in order to "adjust the border." According to the ministry, after the measures taken by Armenian units, the Azerbaijani military stopped these works. On the same evening, acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan convened a session of the Armenian Security Council, during which he called the events infringement upon the territory of Armenia. According to him, the Azerbaijani armed forces crossed the state border of Armenia by 3.5 km.
Afterwards, Yerevan said it applied to the CSTO in connection with the escalation of the situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Apart from Armenia, members of the organization include Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan.
In turn, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that the country's troops move "on positions belonging to Azerbaijan". The sides have negotiated several times over the past few days to resolve the situation. The last took place on May 16 with the mediation of the Russian side.
After the end of hostilities in the conflict zone around Nagorno-Karabakh in the fall of 2020, when seven districts adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh came under Baku's control, Armenia's border with Azerbaijan became directly next to the Syunik and Gegharkunik regions.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS