Russian president holds trilateral meeting with Azerbaijani counterpart, Armenian premier

By Burc Eruygur

ISTANBUL (AA) - Russian President Vladimir Putin held a meeting late Thursday in the Kremlin with his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

“In my opinion, despite the fact that there are still difficulties and problems, the situation is developing towards a settlement,” Putin said ahead of the meeting, which took place on the sidelines of the Eurasian Economic Union Forum.

Putin said that one of the areas that needs work concerns transport communications, which he said involves unresolved issues that are “purely technical in nature.”

"We discussed this topic in detail, the issue of terminology. Of course, behind these terms there should be an accurate understanding of the realities and events that will follow the signing of the relevant documents," he said, adding these are “surmountable obstacles.”

Before the meeting, Putin held separate talks with Aliyev and Pashinyan, where he discussed bilateral relations between Russia and their respective countries as well as issues regarding normalization between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

In the fall of 2020 in 44 days of clashes, Azerbaijan liberated several cities, villages and settlements from Armenian occupation. The Russian-brokered peace agreement is celebrated as a triumph in Azerbaijan.

Despite ongoing talks on a peace agreement between Baku and Yerevan, tensions between the neighboring countries increased in recent months over the Lachin corridor, the only land route giving Armenia access to Karabakh.