YEREVAN, September 5. /TASS/. Moscow has never dodged its role of an "honest broker" in the negotiations between Baku and Yerevan, of which Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent meetings and conversations with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan are evidence, Russia’s ambassador to Armenia, Sergey Kopyrkin, said in an interview with the socio-political periodical "Allies. CSTO".

"Russia has never abandoned its role as an ‘honest broker’ in the negotiation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Russian President Vladimir Putin's recent contacts with partners, in particular his state visit to Azerbaijan on August 18-19 and telephone conversations with Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev, during which the issues of Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization were emphasized, are a clear confirmation of that," Kopyrkin said.

He also noted that it was thanks to efforts by Russia and Putin personally that it became possible to stop the 2020 war and develop and implement a mechanism of the trilateral working group to unblock economic and transport links.

"We are sincerely interested in the success of the negotiations and in the well-being and peace on the territory of our near neighbors, partners and allies. <...> We consider the conclusion of a balanced peace treaty between our two allies as an indispensable prerequisite for building an architecture of indivisible security and sustainable socio-economic development," Kopyrkin said.

Tensions over Nagorno-Karabakh escalated on September 27, 2020, when active hostilities started there. On November 9, 2020, a trilateral statement was signed by Putin, Aliyev and Pashinyan, which made it possible to achieve a complete ceasefire. Under the terms of the agreement the Azerbaijani and Armenian forces stopped on the positions they were holding at the moment, a number of districts were placed under Baku's control and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the line of engagement and the Lachin corridor.