Putin urges easing of Karabkh tensions in talks with Aliyev, Pashinyan
Azerbaijan's President Aliyev and Armenia's PM Pashinyan expressed readiness to start the process of demarcation and delimitation of their contested border during a meeting with Russia's Putin in Sochi.
Russian and Azerbaijani presidents discussed bilateral ties ahead of trilateral rare meeting with Armenian prime minister.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has urged Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev to ease tensions and resolve disputes left over from last year's war over the Karabakh region.
Putin gathered the leaders for a rare face-to-face meeting in the Black Sea resort of Sochi on Friday after a flare-up in fighting on the border between the two countries earlier this month.
"We were part of a united state for centuries, we have deep historical links," Putin told the pair after holding separate talks with each of them.
He said Russia's peace-keeping mission and the Russian-Turkish monitoring center play a positive role in preventing wider confrontation, but more needs to be done.
"It is necessary to discuss what has already been done and what still needs to be done by everyone, such that not only nothing like this (armed clashes) arises, but conditions are created for calming the situation and allow people to live in peace, and countries to develop," the Russian president added.
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Ready to start border delimitation
Aliyev and Pashinyan expressed readiness to start the process of demarcation and delimitation of their contested border.
"We are ready to start working on the delimitation and on the peace treaty as a matter of urgency to learn how to live as neighbours again," Aliyev said.
Pashinyan said Armenia is "also ready to start the delimitation and demarcations of borders."
He said Putin and Russian peacekeepers "play a key role in the stabilisation of the region."
The leaders also addressed the issue of rebuilding Soviet-era transport links between Azerbaijan and Armenia which are currently closed by a mutual blockade.
Baku and Ankara have pressed actively for the reopening of a historic land link uniting Azerbaijan with its exclave of Nakhichevan and further on to Turkey via Armenia's Syunik province, as stipulated in last November's ceasefire agreement.
Russia has supported plans to reopen land communications but shares Armenia's rejection of the corridor.
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