By Lusine Musayelian and Shoghik Galstian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Russia remains ready to help Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiate a peace treaty and delineate their border, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a state visit to Baku on Monday, August 19.
Meeting with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev, Putin stressed that Moscow wants to maintain its “historical involvement in the situation in the South Caucasus” and Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks, in particular, despite the widening war with Ukraine.
“If there is something we can do to pave the way for the signing of a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the delimitation, demarcation of the border, unblocking, as we have discussed with you many times, relevant areas in logistics and the economy, we would be very happy about that,” he told Aliyev in his opening remarks.
“Of course, after my visit to Azerbaijan, I will contact Prime Minister [Nikol] Pashinyan and tell him about the results of our negotiations,” added Putin.
Russia has repeatedly offered to resume its mediation of Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks over the past year, including in the aftermath of last month’s meeting of the foreign ministers of the two South Caucasus states hosted by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Armenia has essentially rejected these initiatives, underlining rising tensions in Russian-Armenian relations and its ongoing drift to the West.
