UPDATE WITH NEW SECTION ON AZERBAIJANI FOREIGN MINISTRY STATEMENT FOLLOWING MEETING
By Burc Eruygur
ANKARA (AA) – The foreign ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia gathered for trilateral talks on the sidelines of the leaders’ summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) in Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital on Friday.
Earlier, statements from the offices of the top diplomats said Sergey Lavrov, Jeyhun Bayramov, and Ararat Mirzoyan would address the current situation in Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region and the implementation of the agreements signed following a Russian-mediated truce between Baku and Yerevan in the meeting.
Before the meeting, Lavrov said he hopes to discuss the implementation of the trilateral agreements on Karabakh reached in November 2020 and January 2021 to understand "how to move forward."
"A separate topic is the negotiation of a peace treaty in addition to agreements on unblocking economic and transport communications, and conducting delimitation through the creation of a bilateral commission between Azerbaijan and Armenia with the advisory assistance of the Russian side," Lavrov said.
For his part, Bayramov said that the Azerbaijani side would concentrate on preparing a peace agreement with Armenia.
“We will focus on aspects of post-conflict settlement for which foreign ministers are responsible. In particular, we are talking about a peace agreement, the topic of which we are discussing,” he further said.
The meeting agenda will also include other issues related to peace in the South Caucasus, including border delimitation, the unblocking of communications and humanitarian issues, he added.
The Karabakh region was liberated from nearly three-decades of Armenian occupation during the 44-day clashes in the 2020 fall, which ended after a Moscow-brokered cease-fire. The peace agreement is celebrated as a triumph in Azerbaijan.
The CIS summit has begun on Friday morning under the auspices of Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev.
- Comprehensive implementation of trilateral agreements stressed
The last meeting of the foreign ministers in this format was held in Tajikistan’s capital Dushanbe in May 2022, Bayramov recalled, defining the talks as a good opportunity to hold discussions on developments after the previous meetings.
According to a statement by Azerbaijan's Foreign Ministry, the top diplomats also exchanged views on various aspects of normalization between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
It also underscored the importance of comprehensive implementation of the trilateral agreements.
“The necessity of fulfilling the unimplemented provisions of the statements by Armenia was emphasized,” the statement said.
In addition, the planting of landmines in Azerbaijan and the failure to provide landmine maps by Armenia was stressed as a serious problem in the statement.
The meeting further touched upon views exchanged on other humanitarian issues that help the normalization process, it concluded.
* Elena Teslova from Moscow contributed to this story