MOSCOW, December 23. /TASS/. The participants of the 3+3 format platform on the issues of peace and stability in the South Caucasus are coordinating new contacts at the ministerial level, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a press conference following talks with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov on Friday.
"Earlier, almost two years ago, Azerbaijani President [Ilham Aliyev] put forth an initiative to shape a process in which the three countries of the South Caucasus and their neighbors - Russia, Turkey, Iran, - would participate, the so-called 3+3 group. <…> Today we are already planning a meeting at the ministerial level. There is an understanding of the relevance of such interaction, we are coordinating dates and specific locations where such a meeting may take place," the Russian top diplomat noted.
"There was a meeting in this format, however, our Georgian colleagues did not participate but the door is always open for them, this is the shared opinion of all the other participants of this format," he added.
The initiative of a six-party cooperation format on Karabakh and the issue of unblocking economic and transport links in the Transcaucasus was put forth by the leaders of Azerbaijan and Turkey Ilham Aliyev and Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Russia and Iran welcomed this idea, Georgia said it was not planning to participate but was proposing its own negotiation format to Baku and Yerevan to maintain peace as a group of three. On December 10, 2021, the platform’s first meeting at the level of deputy foreign ministers was held in Moscow.