MOSCOW, August 31. /TASS/. Moscow and Yerevan have agreed to continue efforts to remove mutual irritants in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said on Tuesday after talks with his visiting Armenian counterpart, Ararat Mirzoyan.
Lavrov said that during the talks they discussed the implementation of the November 9, 2020, trilateral agreements of the Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders that made it possible to stop the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh. "We agreed not to relax attention to the efforts geared to remove mutual irritants in relations between Yerevan and Baku, including the final solution to the problem of the release of Armenian prisoners and sharing mine location maps, and reiterated the importance of further activities of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs," he said.
The two top diplomats exchanged views on the situation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border outside the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "We are convinced that all problems must be resolved by political and diplomatic means only and a lasting settlement is possible only through the delimitation and demarcation of the border. The Russian president’s initiative on this matter is well known. We spoke today about how to ensure its swift implementation. We reiterated our readiness to promote this process," Lavrov stressed.
The minister expressed the hope that the activities of the trilateral working group co-chaired by the Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani deputy prime ministers to unblock transport and economic ties in the South Caucasus would create a reliable basis for political settlement and prosperity of the entire region.
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.
The situation at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border has been tense since May 12, when Armenia’s defense ministry said that Azerbaijani armed forces had tried to carry out "certain works" in a border area in Syunik Province in a bid to "adjust the border." Since then, the sides have been reporting border incidents from time to time.