Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the need for a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia during a meeting of the international discussion club "Valdai".
"Our position is that this treaty is certainly needed. And we support a peaceful settlement, as well as the border delimitation and the full settlement of the border issue. It is up to Armenia, the Armenian people and the Armenian leadership to decide which option to choose. In any case, whatever option is chosen, if it leads to peace, then we support it. But we are not going to impose anything", the Head of state said.
Putin stressed that Moscow could not and was not going to dictate anything to Yerevan. "If the Armenian people and the current leadership believe that it is necessary to choose some specific version of this peace treaty... The so-called "Washington" (version of the peace treaty - ed.), as far as I understand, provides for the recognition of Azerbaijan's sovereignty over Karabakh as a whole. Well, if Armenia thinks so, well, okay. We will support any choice of the Armenian people. If the Armenian people and the Armenian leadership believe that Karabakh has its own peculiarities, which should be taken into account, and this fact should be stated in a future peace treaty somehow, this is also possible", the Russian leader said.
At the same time, he focused on the need to discuss this issue with Azerbaijan. "It is necessary that these agreements should be acceptable to the other side, for Azerbaijan. This is a very complex and difficult issue", Putin added.
