Azerbaijan and Armenia to meet soon

YEREVAN

Russian President Medvedev (C) and his Armenian, Azerbaijani counterparts Sargsyan (R), Aliyev sits in a cafe while touring a ski resort in Sochi in 2010.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will soon host another meeting between his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts on the unresolved conflict over the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported on its website.

Quoting Russian diplomatic sources, Russian news agency Regnum reported last week that the talks were scheduled to take place in the Russian Black Sea city of Sochi on Jan. 23-24. Commenting on the information, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian said Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had agreed to meet again.

“The date and venue of the meeting will be announced in due course, when the parties find it convenient,” Nalbandian said. Medvedev has organized about a dozen such meetings since 2008 but has so far failed to broker a peace deal along the lines of proposals made by the Russian, U.S., and French co-chairs of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group. The most recent Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani summit took place in the Russian city of Kazan in June.

Nalbandian insisted that the trilateral talks were not futile and may still yield a breakthrough in the near future. “This format has proved its viability and effectiveness, and I am sure that meetings will continue in this format,” he said. 

Nalbandian also said Armenia’s position on how to resolve the Karabakh conflict was in tune with the international mediators’ views. He added that the Karabakh-related events of the past year reaffirmed that “harmony.”