Azerbaijan retook the lands that belonged to it in the first place, Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergei Lavrov said in an interview with Dmitry Kiselev.
He noted that the history of the Karabakh war dates back decades, thus adding that for many years Armenia held Azerbaijani lands under occupation.
"Russia offered numerous options that the previous Armenian leadership didn't take too well, wishing to keep Azerbaijan's territories under occupation," Lavrov stressed.
Lavrov recalled that both Armenia and Azerbaijan had signed a document with the EU about their readiness to sign a peace treaty under the conditions stipulated in the 1991 Almaty Declaration.
He added that the proposal to deploy a mission of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan is standing.
The diplomat stressed that the plan was prepared quite a long time ago, although the Armenian side did not rush it. "As a result, already at the summit in Yerevan, we finalized the text of the relevant decision. But our Armenian colleagues said that they would need this decision only if it would categorically condemned Azerbaijan's actions. Not everyone was ready for this," Lavrov said, noting that it was due to the fact that the history of the Karabakh conflict went back decades.
