Azerbaijan - important strategic partner of Russia, the positions of the two countries coincide on most key issues. The decisive role in specific areas play regular contact of the Russian and Azerbaijani presidents, stated Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at a press conference in Moscow after a meeting with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov.
Referring to the Karabakh issue, he said: "Of course, we talked about the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. Russia will continue to contribute to finding acceptable solutions acceptable to the parties in the framework of our bilateral relations with Baku and Yerevan, and in the format of trilateral meetings - Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia, but also, of course, as a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group.
All our steps are being taken in line with the basic approaches that are produced by the co-chairs, we have in mind, our partners - the US and France. Armenia and Azerbaijan are still far from being able to agree on several key aspects of the Karabakh settlement, Lavrov said. "We hope that the Karabakh conflict is amenable to settlement. This is indicated by the results of years of contacts, on the basis of which it was possible to develop a common understanding of the key issues to be resolved. This security issues, first of all, they are humanitarian questions, the return of those areas, which are now around Karabakh and are not controlled by Azerbaijan. This is also the determination of Karabakh's status, of course, taking into account the people who live there, and the agreement of parameters of the international peacekeeping forces", Lavrov said. On most of these aspects, "we have agreed," he said.
"But two or three specific topics that are key to the final package is still under discussion and, we are still far from being able to see a situation where the parties to develop a common approach to these aspects," Lavrov said. He further said that the sides discussed the problems of the Caspian. "We hope that the forthcoming Foreign Ministers' Meeting of the Caspian littoral countries will be able to complete the work on the Convention on the legal status of the Caspian Sea," he said. -02D-
Politics
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Armenia is not against the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, but does not consider it appropriate to discuss this issue now. "In the context of peace, we consider it possible to make a decision on the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group. When peace is an established fact, the existence of such a format may raise questions," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference today. "The whole question is about the timing, we need to understand how effectively and correctly to turn such topics into a subject of discussion right now," the Armenian Prime Minister added.
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He expressed his willingness to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the border between the two countries. "A meeting with Ilham Aliyev could take place at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. I am open to such a format," Pashinyan said at a press conference today. According to Pashinyan, Armenia recently presented another proposal for a peace treaty to Azerbaijan.
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On August 31, Azerbaijan observes a "day of silence" before the Sunday’s early parliamentary elections for the unicameral Milli Majlis. All electoral campaigning is prohibited 24 hours before the voting. The early elections were initiated by the ruling Yeni Azerbaijan Party. This decision was motivated by the overlap of the scheduled elections in November with the global UN forum - the COP20 climate conference taking place in Baku.
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On August 30, at approximately 22:55, the Armenian Nuclear Power Plant in Metsamor was disconnected from the country's power grid, as reported by the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure. The shutdown was caused by a lightning strike, which triggered the plant's safety systems to switch the station to a safe shutdown mode. Currently, the plant's staff is working on restarting the facility.
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