A meeting of the trilateral working group on the level of the deputy prime ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia to unblock all economic and transport communications in Nagorno-Karabakh may take place in the near future. The Russian Foreign Ministry said this on Wednesday.
"In the interagency format together with the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides we are making preparations for holding the first meeting in the near future," the ministry said.
The Foreign Ministry stressed that impartial and responsible assistance to the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process has been and remains one of the priorities of the Russian foreign policy in Transcaucasia.
"The urgent task is to ensure the transition of states in the region from confrontation to reconciliation in order to restore good neighborly relations, establish inter-ethnic and interfaith peace and trust, and form solid conditions for stability and prosperity in the South Caucasus," it was stated.
On the situation around Karabakh
Baku and Yerevan have been disputing ownership of Nagorno-Karabakh since February 1988, when it announced its secession from the Azerbaijani SSR. The situation in the region escalated on September 27, 2020, with active fighting there.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on the full cessation of hostilities in Nagorno-Karabakh on November 9. 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.
On January 11, following a meeting in Moscow between Putin, Aliyev and Pashinyan, a joint statement was signed, which, in particular, provided for the creation of a trilateral working group at the level of deputy prime ministers to unblock all economic and transport communications in the region.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
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Based on materials from TASS