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Armenia–Azerbaijan conflict

Macron agrees to exchange information on Nagorno-Karabakh with Putin, Trump

French President Emmanuel Macron AP Photo/Francisco Seco, Pool

French President Emmanuel Macron

© AP Photo/Francisco Seco, Pool

BRUSSELS, October 1. /TASS/. French President Emmanuel Macron has agreed to exchange information on the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region with his Russian and US counterparts, Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump, as Macron himself said upon arrival at the EU summit in Brussels on Thursday.

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Putin, Macron, Trump call for talks on Nagorno-Karabakh without preconditions

"President Trump, President Putin and I have agreed to exchange all the information we have on the situation in order to make the necessary conclusions," he said. "As members of the OSCE Minsk Group, we are working to bring the situation back to normal and achieve a ceasefire without preconditions, as well as to resolve the issue through talks based on international law," Macron added.

According to him, France "will do everything possible to end the conflict as soon as possible." "The strikes that were launched from Azerbaijan’s territory on Sunday cannot be justified, in my view," the French president said, adding that he "told Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev about it."

Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The area experienced flare-ups of violence in the summer of 2014, in April 2016 and this past July. Azerbaijan and Armenia have imposed martial law and launched mobilization efforts. Both parties to the conflict have reported casualties, among them civilians.

The conflict over 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.

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