A meeting between Russian Ambassador to Armenia Sergei Kopyrkin and members of the organizing committee of the forum titled Strategic Union Armenia-Artsakh was a routine event and does not mean that Russia has changed its stance on Nagorno-Karabakh, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said.

"We are dealing with routine contacts as part of the ambassador's communication with sociopolitical forces in the host country. I'd like to stress that this is part of his direct duties," Zakharova said at a news briefing on Wednesday.

Kopyrkin's meeting with members of the Dashnaktsutyun party on June 26 was initiated by Armenia and addressed a broad range of issues, including Nagorno-Karabakh, "although this subject was not a key one," she said.

"Our diplomats had not been informed that representatives of the Strategic Union Armenia-Artsakh forum would come together with the leadership of this political organization," she said.

"Therefore, this very contact and this meeting cannot have the political tint that the press attributed to it, and Russia's position on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement has not changed in any way and cannot change; it is formulated in Moscow and is communicated locally by ambassadors and [other] diplomats," she said.

The Azerbaijani authorities were informed about this meeting, she said.

Local media had said earlier that members of the organizing committee of the Strategic Union Armenia-Artsakh forum met with Kopyrkin on June 26 and handed him a document outlining the objectives and the final declaration of the forum, which had been held in Stepanakert back on May 7.

Azerbaijani media said in commenting on the matter that the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry summoned Russian Ambassador Mikhail Bocharnikov on June 28.