News - Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty is on agenda, Putin says

Russia is ready to organize peace treaty talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This was announced by Russian President Vladimir Putin, speaking at Friday’s meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) leaders, in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. According to him, the West seeks to disrupt, in the broadest sense of the word, friendly relations with Russia's allies and partners. "Any means are used [in this regard]," Putin said, adding that this is the latest example of such activity by the West "Far from them, but very close to us in strategically important regions, was the Karabakh crisis, which we discussed in detail yesterday with the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev," Putin said. "Over the past three years, Russia has made significant efforts to stop hostilities and prevent escalation. With our help, relevant tripartite documents were prepared. Ilham Aliyev can confirm that Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan have been working hard all this time in a tripartite format to normalize relations between Baku and Yerevan. The Russian peacekeepers have conscientiously fulfilled their obligations [in Nagorno-Karabakh] within the framework of their powers."  Putin said that the current agenda is to prepare a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan to end this long conflict. "And Russia is certainly ready to provide all possible assistance to this process. In particular, Russia is ready to organize negotiations in Moscow; if necessary, in any format; initially at the level of the foreign ministers and experts of Armenia and Azerbaijan. And of course, we [Russia] will help those negotiations end with a peace agreement which will be signed by the leaders of the two countries. I repeat: the choice is always up to these [two] countries. We are ready to create conditions for this work," said the Russian president.