BAKU, February 9. /TASS/. Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov has discussed the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh with Wendy Morton, Minister for European Neighborhood and the Americas at the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office, the press service of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry informed on Tuesday.
"Bayramov informed his British colleague [Wendy Morton] of the current situation in the region and the process of adhering to the provisions of the trilateral agreements on Karabakh dated November 9 and January 11. It was noted that adherence to these agreements would help ensure peace and security in the region and create opportunities for cooperation," the message says. The Azerbaijani minister stressed that the republic had taken all the necessary steps from its side to adhere to the provisions.
For her part, Morton stressed the importance of cooperation between both states in the sphere of gender equality, fight against climate change and development of green energy. The minister stressed that the UK is ready to aid Azerbaijan’s demining of its territories.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry noted that the sides had exchanged opinions on a number of bilateral issues, namely in the sphere of energy.
Earlier on Tuesday, Morton met with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. During the meeting, he said that the seventh session of the Southern Gas Corridor Advisory Council is set to take place in Baku this week. Achievements and prospects of cooperation will be considered, he said.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, 2020, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. The conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union break-up, but primarily populated by ethnic Armenians, broke out in February 1988 after the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1992-1994, tensions boiled over and exploded into large-scale military action for control over the enclave and seven adjacent territories after Azerbaijan lost control of them.
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 starting from November 10. The Russian leader said the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides would maintain the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers would be deployed to the region. Besides, Baku and Yerevan must exchange prisoners and the bodies of those killed.