Russia does not seek an exclusive right to communicate with Armenia and Azerbaijan, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement marking the anniversary of the trilateral statement signed by the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan on November 9, 2020, TASS reports.

“Russia is not claiming a monopoly in communication with Armenia and Azerbaijan although we have bonds of longstanding and close friendship and a large-scale partnership on all azimuths with those countries and peoples,” the statement says. “We stand for effective use of the international community’s current potential with adequate account of the changed regional realities.”

The Foreign Ministry pointed out that a year after the trilateral statement the information on social networks and online resources claiming that “Russia’s peacekeeping efforts were allegedly aimed at ‘breaking Nagorno-Karabakh away,’ ‘handing it over’ to Azerbaijan, and turning Armenia into a ‘protectorate’ can be safely refuted.”

“These statements are populist, are obviously ordered from the outside and have nothing to do with reality,” the Foreign Ministry noted.

The ministry emphasized that the Moscow-initiated trilateral agreements and mechanisms “were not imposed on the sides, but were based on a verified balance of interests and included a very respectful attitude to the sovereignty and interests of Baku and Yerevan.”

“Some of our initiatives could not be agreed upon, and that is normal. On the other hand, the agreement that has already been confirmed is, as they say, hard-won and effectively implemented in practice,” the Foreign Ministry stressed.