Russia interested in early settlement of Karabakh conflict - MFA

By Azernews

By Rashid Shirinov

Russia is interested in settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as soon as possible, Russian Foreign Ministry’s Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at a briefing on November 23.

“Settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is one of the priorities for Russia,” she said. “We very much want the conflict to be resolved and the sooner the better.”

Zakharova added that the work on the resolution of the conflict takes not weeks – it is conducted all the time.

“When the current work gives the corresponding results, then the activity that you see on the screens appears. It is carried out constantly,” she noted.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.

Until now, Armenia controls fifth part of Azerbaijan's territory and rejects implementing four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts.

Russia, along with the U.S. and France, is a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group established to broker a peace to the conflict. Today the country can be called the most active co-chair of the MG, as the Russian president and FM have numerously held trilateral meetings with Azerbaijani and Armenian heads of state and foreign ministers in order to accelerate the settlement process of the long-standing conflict.

This week, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov paid a visit to the region, where he met with Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents and FMs and among other topics discussed the conflict related issues with them.