Moscow is making active efforts to end hostilities in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This was announced on Thursday, October 22, by the official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Maria Zakharova during a briefing.
“We continue active mediation efforts aimed at ending the bloodshed in the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The issues of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, in particular, were discussed on October 20 and 21 in Moscow during separate meetings of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, ”she said.
The representative of the Foreign Ministry reminded that on October 23, the meeting of Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs on Karabakh will take place in Washington.
“As before, we work in the format of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship. The next meeting of the mediators is planned for tomorrow in Washington, ”Zakharova added.
On the same day, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that he did not rule out a meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Nagorno-Karabakh in Moscow.
In turn, Pashinyan noted that the Karabakh issue has no diplomatic solution. He stressed that Yerevan has always talked about its readiness to solve the problem on the basis of a mutual compromise. But the situation has developed in such a way that things acceptable for Armenia are no longer acceptable for Azerbaijan.
On October 20, the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov announced that Moscow continues to work at the diplomatic level with Baku and Yerevan on the settlement of the conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh zone.
The aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh began on September 27. Baku and Yerevan accused each other of shelling and the death of civilians. On October 9, during negotiations in Moscow, the parties agreed to cease fire from October 10, but in fact this did not happen.
On October 18, a new humanitarian truce entered into force, the first night in Stepanakert passed calmly. However, both Armenia and Azerbaijan again accused each other of violating the ceasefire and conducting shelling on the line of contact.
The conflict around Karabakh erupted in 1988 due to the decision of the autonomy of Nagorno-Karabakh to leave the Azerbaijan SSR. Baku lost control over the region during the 1992-1994 military confrontation, but still considers the territory its own.