Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders on Monday to try to broker a deal for a long-running standoff between the two former Soviet neighbors.
In a first meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the Russian leader’s Black Sea apartment in Sochi, Putin said the goals would be to ensure peace and stability and unlock shipping infrastructure for economic and social development. from Armenian.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are locked in a decades-long dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, which is part of Azerbaijan but has been under the control of Armenian-backed ethnic Armenian forces since the end of a separatist war in 1994.
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“We see the approaches of our colleagues on what is on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and around Karabakh,” Putin said Monday. “This confrontation has dragged on for a decade, so we still want to end it. “Putin’s talks with Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are on the verge of implementing a 2020 peace deal brokered through Russia.
During a six-week war in 2020, Azerbaijan recaptured large swathes of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent territories that Armenian forces had occupied for decades. More than 6700 people were killed in the fighting. Moscow has deployed about 2,000 troops to the region to serve as peacekeepers.
Pashinyan on Monday would pressure Azerbaijan to withdraw its troops from the Russian peacekeeping zone in Nagorno-Karabakh and call for the release of Armenian prisoners of war.
An extension of Russia’s peacekeeping mandate is also being discussed, Russian news agencies reported.
A new round of hostilities broke out in September, when more than two hundred infantrymen were killed on both sides. Armenia and Azerbaijan traded blame for the start of the fighting.
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Russia is Armenia’s main best friend and sponsor. In a delicate balancing act, he has a military base in Armenia, but has also developed ties with Azerbaijan.
In a clear reflection of tensions with Armenian leaders, Putin noted last Thursday that the Kremlin begged Pashinyan’s government before the 2020 hostilities to accept a compromise in which Armenian forces would hand over Azerbaijani lands outside Nagorno-Karabakh they seized in the early 90s.
Putin lamented that “Armenian leaders have taken another path. “During the 2020 fighting, Azerbaijan regained only those territories, but also significant parts of Nagorno-Karabakh proper.