Off the wire
• China to implement food aid to African countries affected by El Nino  • Sri Lanka to restructure national airline carrier after mounting debt  • 1st LD-Writethru: China steps up punishment for drug crime  • Wealth climate index rebounds as China's economy improves  • Weather forecast for major Chinese cities, regions -- April 7  • Weather forecast for world cities -- April 7  • 2nd LD-Writethru: China's forex reserves end falling streak  • Asset quality remains major issue for China banks: Fitch  • China starts to release forex reserves in Special Drawing Rights  • Spotlight: An overlooked global challenge: the whereabouts of nuclear material  
You are here: 　 Home

Russian FM pledges efforts to resolve Nagorno-Karabakh conflict

Xinhua, April 7, 2016 Adjust font size:

Russia will make every effort to promote its initiatives in the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said here Thursday.

"The contacts between Moscow and the parties (of the conflict) were carried out at all levels; we tried to help our friends and we hope that the cease-fire will be maintained," Lavrov told reporters after a planned trilateral meeting with his Azerbaijani and Iranian counterparts.

"The situation requires working out confidence-building measures on the line of contact and looking back to the previous agreement reached during the talks," he added.

As for the meeting, Lavrov said it focused on coordination of security in the region and the fight against drug trafficking.

The meeting came two days after Armenia and Azerbaijan agreed to a cease-fire in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The two countries have been locked in a bitter dispute over the mountainous region. Conflict first broke out in 1988, when the enclave dominated by ethnic Armenians claimed independence from Azerbaijan and declared to join Armenia.

Peace talks have been held since 1994 when a cease-fire was reached, but there have been occasional minor clashes.

Recent hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the contact line in Nagorno-Karabakh flared up overnight Saturday with the two countries blaming each other for triggering the escalation.

On Tuesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin called for the resumption of negotiations between Baku and Yerevan with the assistance of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe to seek a peaceful settlement of the conflict.

Russia would play an intermediary role in the normalization of the situation, he said, adding that all sides agreed to keep contact in different formats. Endi