Two weeks after the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Washington, Russia expressed readiness on Wednesday to host more Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.
“In line with understandings reached, Moscow has repeatedly hosted rounds of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on a draft peace treaty,” said Maria Zakharova, the Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman. “It is ready, as we have always emphasized, to continue to do so. We guarantee the creation of the most comfortable conditions for the work of both delegations in their preferred bilateral format.”
Zakharova described both South Caucasus nations as “our allies” and said Moscow hopes that a “balanced peace treaty” between them will be negotiated soon.
Azerbaijan was quick to welcome her offer, with an Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesman telling the TASS news agency that it “has always been ready for negotiations with the Armenian side in Russia and other venues.”
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There was no immediate reaction from Armenia’s government increasingly at odds with Moscow. Over the past year, Yerevan has turned down Russian offers to organize further peace talks with Baku and preferred instead Western mediation of the negotiation process.
As recently as on July 10, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov held in Washington talks mediated by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. They made no decisive progress towards the peace deal. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met in Germany in February.
Russian officials claim that the United States and the European Union are primarily concerned with driving Russia out of the South Caucasus, rather than resolving the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.