MOSCOW, May 14. /TASS/. Moscow believes that the trilateral agreements are the only basis for a lasting settlement between Baku and Yerevan, Russian presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said on Sunday.
"Naturally, certain sensitive aspects do exist. Russia, you know, is committed to the trilateral documents that were signed two years ago. We insist that there are no alternatives to them as a basis for the settlement. And in order to reach settlement, it is necessary to follow the path of implementing the agreements that were reached by the three parties," he said in an interview with the Moscow.Kremlin.Putin program on the Rossiya-1 television channel.
He pledged that relations between Russia and Armenia rest on the basis of "advanced partnership." "Special relations, which have deep historical roots. We are convinced that they have a bright future," Peskov said.
The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory that had been part of Azerbaijan before the Soviet Union’s 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. Talks on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement have been ongoing since 1992 under the OSCE Minsk Group, led by its three co-chairs – Russia, France and the United States.
Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, 2020, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh. 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. Under the agreement, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had held and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the engagement line in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor that connects Armenia with the enclave to exercise control of the ceasefire observance. Apart from that, a number of districts came over to Baku’s control.
Later, the three leaders adopted several more joint statements on the situation in the region. Last year, Azerbaijan and Armenia began to discuss a peace treaty.