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Lavrov: Political process on Karabakh conflict’s settlement slowed down

Lavrov: Political process on Karabakh conflict’s settlement slowed down

02-10-2019

The political process to resolve the situation around Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has slowed down, and it has been impossible to progress in this direction so far, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Oct. 2 at the 16th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, Trend reports via TASS.

“As for Nagorno-Karabakh, the situation on the contact line has been quite calm lately, and there are few minor incidents,” he said. “The bodies of the killed people were exchanged, an exchange of detainees is being prepared - in very small quantity, but nonetheless, some kind of process continues. The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s settlement-Russia, France, the US- work closely, they met three times already this year, I think, with the foreign ministers, including in April in Moscow with my participation. Regarding the situation on the ground, I would say that it’s calmer now than a year ago, but the political process has slowed down.”

“We, as co-chairs, work together with the Americans and the French, thank God, this is probably one of the few situations where we have a completely unified vision,” he said. “We have basic documents - we don’t want to reconsider them, we want to seek a solution based on these principles that have been discussed many times. But the solution must, of course, be found through direct dialogue.”

“There are contacts, but the dialogue on the settlement hasn’t yet resumed,” he noted. “But I don’t see any obvious danger here or resumption of some major actions.”

He emphasized that Russia will do everything possible to ensure that this doesn’t happen.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, Armenian armed forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.

The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations. Armenia has not yet implemented four UN Security Council resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.

trend.az