MOSCOW
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan on Friday discussed steps on normalizing relations between Baku and Yerevan.
The two ministers met on the sidelines of the Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, a Russian Foreign Ministry statement said.
"The importance of intensifying efforts on all tracks of Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization in accordance with the agreements of the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020-2022 was outlined," it noted.
Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.
A truce has been in force between the neighbors since a 2020 war that forced Armenia to cede territories it had occupied for decades.