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Azerbaijan open to Russia as venue for talks with Armenia — top diplomat

Jeyhun Bayramov stressed, however, that "it is Armenia that has recently been reluctant to agree to this"

BAKU, August 19. /TASS/. Baku has never rejected any platform for talks with Yerevan, believing Russia to be as good a venue as any, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov said.

"As for the format of meetings [with Armenian officials], we are open to the negotiation process. We use a bilateral platform involving Azerbaijan and Armenia for that purpose. Besides, we have never rejected any other platform. We have always seen Russia as an acceptable host and we are certainly ready to use this platform," he said in an interview with Russia’s Izvestia daily.

He stressed, however, that "it is Armenia that has recently been reluctant to agree to this."

"For us, the main goal is to make sure that all the existing territorial claims are fully resolved and a document - ideally, it should be a peace treaty - removes all potential risks of the issue re-emerging in the future," Bayramov noted. According to him, today, the biggest obstacle to peace is that Armenia’s fundamental documents - the Independence Act and the Constitution - still contain territorial claims to Azerbaijan.