Putin pledges Russian role as mediator only in post-Soviet conflicts

Channel One TV, Moscow
11 Jan 05

[Presenter] At a joint news conference after meeting representatives
of [Russian and Turkish] business circles, Vladimir Putin and Recep
Erdogan took questions from journalists about relations between Turkey
and Armenia and the settlement of the Cyprus and Karabakh problems.

[Putin] Russia, for its part, will do all it can to settle the
conflicts that remained in the post-Soviet space after the Soviet
Union but will do so exclusively as a mediator, as a guarantor of
potential accords, on the understanding that these accords must be
reached, above all, between the conflict sides, in this instance
between Armenia and Azerbaijan.