MOSCOW, January 18. /TASS/. Yerevan’s position is preventing any headway from being made in efforts to improve relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at his annual news conference devoted to reviewing Moscow’s main foreign policy achievements in 2023.

"With all due respect, I see Yerevan’s position as the main hurdle," he stated in response to a question. "I don’t know what advice Yerevan is getting or from whom. <...> Still, we all saw that as soon as the European Union, France, Germany and the US realized the dialogue involving Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan was getting results in terms of unblocking transportation links, delimiting the border and laying down a peace treaty, they immediately started to interfere in these processes uninvited, playing the role of spoiler," Lavrov noted.

In regard to Western interference, the top Russian diplomat pointed out that back in 2003, Moscow had acted as a mediator, brokering a memorandum between Moldova and Transnistria, which had even been initialed. However, the European Union’s pressure on Chisinau prevented the document from being signed. "Likewise, had the Minsk Agreements been implemented, the Ukraine issue might have been resolved seven years ago. However, the West did not allow it to happen," Lavrov emphasized.

Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to discuss a potential peace treaty. One of the key obstacles in the negotiations concerns the demarcation of the border between the two countries. Yerevan insists that the border delimitation process should be based on the 1991 Alma-Ata Protocol. The Armenian authorities favor using maps from 1974-1990, which belonged to the General Staff of the Soviet Armed Forces.