MOSCOW, September 30. /TASS/. Russia sees Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s positive mindset towards mutually acceptable package agreements on Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian Foreign Ministry Deputy Spokesperson Alexei Zaitsev said on Thursday.
"It is very important to ensure possibilities for finding mutually acceptable solutions" on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, he said. "The readiness for opening a new page in relations and their gradual normalization expressed at the top level both by Baku and Yerevan is a confirmation of the objective need for such a mindset. We focus our efforts on such positive things."
"On our part, we see Yerevan’s and Baku’s positive mindset towards reaching mutually acceptable package agreements, which will make it possible to bring the joint work up to the level of project cooperation," he said.
According to the Russian diplomat, Moscow sees a "lasting and sustainable solution" to the "problem of incidents at certain sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border" in the establishment of a commission on the state border delimitation with its subsequent demarcation. "The Russian side outlined and referred to Yerevan’s and Baku’s consideration proposals on the launch of a corresponding negotiating process. We are waiting for a response from the partners," he added.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a government meeting on August 12 that Yerevan was ready to resume talks with Azerbaijan on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and was waiting for concrete initiatives from the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).
In an interview with the France-24 television channel in late September, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev also said he was ready for talks with the Armenian prime minister if such a meeting was organized by the OSCE Minsk Group.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs - Russia, France and the United States.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, 2020, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. On November 9, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. Under the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the engagement line in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor that connects Armenia with the enclave to exercise control of the ceasefire observance. Apart from that, a number of districts came over to Baku’s control.