Russian President Vladimir Putin’s talks with his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts, Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev, are not going to be smooth, Russian president’s press secretary Dmitry Peskov.
"Naturally, the talks will be difficult. The key task now is to secure that combat operations are not resumed, not to let the progress reached by the moment of violence outbreak around Nagorno-Karabakh be lost. So, the working day promises to be very busy and hard," TASS cited Peskov as saying.
According to Peskov, separate talks with the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents will be followed by a trilateral meeting and a working lunch.
Recall, on the night of April 2 all frontier positions of Azerbaijan were exposed to heavy fire from large-caliber weapons, mortars, grenade launchers and guns. In addition, Azerbaijani settlements near the front line, densely populated by civilians, were shelled.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, in 1992 Armenian armed forces occupied 20% of Azerbaijan, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts.
The two countries signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994. The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, Russia, France and the US, are currently holding peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the UN Security Council's four resolutions on withdrawal of its armed forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding districts.
