BAKU, February 27. /TASS/. Russia welcomes any efforts by other countries geared toward settling relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia and toward strengthening mutually beneficial cooperation in the region, visiting Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.

"Many our international colleagues, including those located far away from this region, show keen interest to helping movement toward settlement between Azerbaijan and Armenia," Lavrov said. "As President [of Russia Vladimir] Putin said, we hail any efforts in the interests of the stabilization of the situation and creating conditions for giving all the countries of the region a possibility to cooperate in the interests of their people on the basis of mutual respect."

According to Lavrov, regional security is a topical issue both in bilateral and multilateral formats.