Hardly any rapprochement in Putin’s meetings with Armenia and Azerbaijan After mass panic in Seoul: government wants thorough investigation

A summit between Armenia and Azerbaijan and Russia brought little progress towards resolving the decades-old conflict between the two states in the South Caucasus. Russian President Vladimir Putin received Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Sochi on Monday.

In a joint statement, it was agreed not to use threats and violence in resolving conflicts. Both states accepted the state sovereignty and the borders of the other country.

A peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan is necessary, according to the three top politicians. Moscow is ready to support the road there, it said. However, there were no concrete proposals on what a peace solution for the two states and for the Armenians in the Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh might look like. Nagorno-Karabakh was not even mentioned in the newspaper.

By the fall of 2020, Armenia had lost a war against neighboring Azerbaijan and had to relinquish control of most of Nagorno-Karabakh. In September, Azerbaijani forces attacked Armenian territory for the first time. The fighting, which left dozens dead, could only be stopped under great pressure from the United Nations, the EU and other actors. Russia has traditionally been the protective power of Armenia in the South Caucasus, but also oversaw the 2020 ceasefire for both sides (sda/dpa)