MOSCOW — Russian President
Vladimir Putin will host
talks with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday, as Moscow seeks to
reassert its role as a key powerbroker between the Caucasus arch-foes.
اضافة اعلان
The talks in the
southern Russian city of Sochi will be held amid growing Western engagement in
the volatile Caucasus region, where Russia — distracted by war in Ukraine — is
losing some of its long-standing influence.
The initiative
comes a month after the worst clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan since
their war in 2020.
The offices of
Armenian Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev
both said they had arrived in Sochi for the meeting.
The Kremlin said
the talks will focus on implementing agreements reached in talks under Russia’s
mediation last year and “further steps to strengthen stability and security” in
the region.
Putin first held
a face-to-face meeting with Pashinyan and was set to meet later Aliyev
separately, before the three congregate for trilateral talks, Moscow said.
“The most
important is to ensure peace and create conditions for development,” he told
Pashinyan.
“I do hope very
much, that we will be able today to make steps towards (the Karabakh
conflict’s) settlement.”
Pashinyan said
Yerevan’s priorities included Azerbaijani withdrawal from the areas in Karabakh
controlled by Russian peacekeepers and the liberation of Armenian POWs.
Armenia and
Azerbaijan have fought two wars — in 2020 and in the 1990s — over Azerbaijan’s
Armenian populated region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
A six-week war
in autumn 2020 which claimed the lives of more than 6,500 troops on both sides
ended with a Russian-brokered deal that saw Yerevan cede swathes of territory
that it had controlled for several decades.
Last month, 286
people from both sides were killed in violence that has jeopardized a slow and
halting peace process.
The hostilities
ended with a US-brokered ceasefire, after earlier failed attempts by Russia to
negotiate a truce.
With Moscow
increasingly isolated on the world stage following its February invasion of
Ukraine, the US and the EU have taken a leading role in mediating the
Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks.
EU chief Charles
Michel and French President
Emmanuel Macron hosted talks between Pashinyan and
Aliyev in Brussels in August.
Following a slew
of diplomatic efforts from Brussels and Washington, Armenian and Azerbaijani
foreign ministers met on October 3 in Geneva to begin drafting the text of a
future peace treaty.
Russia and EU
leaders have traded criticism of their mediation efforts in the Karabakh
conflict, with Moscow and Paris in particular exchanging jabs this month.
Putin recently
dismissed a comment by Macron who said that Moscow was “destabilizing” a peace
process between the two countries.
Moscow has
traditionally acted as a middle-man between the two countries, which were both
part of the Soviet Union.
Russian
peacekeepers
The 2020 ceasefire agreement saw Russia deploy a force of 2,000
peacekeepers to the region to oversee a fragile truce.
Ahead of the
talks, Armenia’s Pashinyan said he was ready to extend their presence by up to
another two decades.
Russia’s
peacekeeping mission has been criticized by some with even Pashinyan raising
concerns about the force, in rare Armenian criticism of its ally.
The EU has
announced a “civilian EU mission” to Armenia to monitor ceasefire violations.
Aliyev has vowed
to repopulate Karabakh with Azerbaijanis and recently re-opened an airport in
the conquered territories.
Baku’s ally
Turkey has also advanced its efforts to be involved in mediation, with
President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan meeting both Aliyev and Pashinyan recently in
Prague.
The Kremlin said
the trio would also discuss “questions on rebuilding and developing trade and
economic as well as transport links.”
When the Soviet
Union collapsed in 1991, ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke
away from Azerbaijan. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives.
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