[1/7] Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union summit at the Grand Kremlin Palace in Moscow, Russia May 25, 2023. Sputnik/Ilya Pitalev/Kremlin via Portal
MOSCOW, May 25 (Portal) – Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Thursday that despite the difficulties, he felt Azerbaijan and Armenia are moving towards a solution to their decades-old conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Putin made his remarks at a televised Kremlin meeting with leaders from both nations. Russia has traditionally been the main power broker between the two countries on the southwestern edge of the former Soviet Union, which have fought two major wars in the past three decades.
“In my opinion, despite the difficulties and problems, of which there are enough, the situation as a whole is still moving towards a solution,” he said.
Officials from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia would meet next week to ensure “any unresolved issues are resolved,” he added.
Earlier, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had argued in Russian for several minutes in the presence of Putin – a clear sign of tensions between the two nations.
Nagorno-Karabakh, an Armenian-populated enclave in Azerbaijan, has been a source of conflict since the years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
In 2020, Azerbaijan took control of areas in and around the Nagorno-Enclave previously controlled by ethnic Armenians and has since regularly restricted access to the only access road connecting Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
Baku set up a checkpoint along the road last month on the grounds that Armenia used the route to send arms to Nagorno-Karabakh, which Yerevan denies.
Putin said the three sides discussed communications and transportation at length.
“There are still unresolved issues, but in my opinion, and we have discussed this with our Azerbaijani and Armenian colleagues, they are purely technical,” he said.
Outstanding issues between the two sides include the rights and safety of the roughly 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Despite their heated exchanges, both Pashinyan and Aliyev said there had recently been progress towards an agreement based on mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity.
Distracted by the war in Ukraine, Russia faces the challenge of maintaining its role as mediator as the United States and European Union have made their own attempts to bring the sides together.
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu was previously quoted by the RIA news agency as saying that the West was trying to interfere in the conflict and to discredit Russia’s peacekeeping policy.
Reporting by Vladimir Soldierkin, Tatiana Gomozova, Caleb Davis, Felix Light, David Ljunggren, and Ron Popeski, written by Mark Trevelyan and Andrew Osborn; Edited by Bill Berkrot, Andrew Heavens and Grant McCool
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