Russia hopes for soonest resumption of negotiations on Nagorno Karabakh settlement, Russian Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said in an interview with Trud.

He added that Russia is working in that direction with other OSCE Minsk Group partners.

“After April 2016, the border clashes of July 12-16 were the second largest violation of the 1994 ceasefire agreement prepared with our mediation. For the first time in the last 26 years, high-intensity clashes using field artillery, mortars and attack drones took place not on the contact line in Karabakh, but directly on the section of the state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he said.

Lavrov noted that “to stabilize the situation the Russian Foreign Ministry called on the parties to immediately cease the hostilities.

“I held telephone conversations with colleagues from Armenia and Azerbaijan, met with representatives of organizations uniting Russian citizens of Azerbaijan and Armenian descent. Both diasporas should be fully aware of their responsibility both for the observance of the laws of the Russian Federation and for helping to create an atmosphere conducive to the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan,” Lavrov added.

“The Russian co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, Igor Popov, was in direct contact with the leadership of the foreign ministries of the two countries. As a result, with active Russian mediation, a ceasefire was reached on August 16, albeit not on the first attempt,” he stressed.

On August 12 the Azerbaijani forces launched an offensive in the Tavush section of the shared border. Armenian civilian settlements and infrastructures were damaged in the attack, a villager was injured.