Russia ready to provide support for Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process, says Lavrov

Russia is ready to support Armenia and Azerbaijan to achieve peace, FM Sergey Lavrov said on May 21 in Yerevan.

“Russia stands ready to further support Yerevan and Baku to achieve full peace and agreement by signing a peace treaty, and also unblocking economic and transport infrastructures and demarcating and delimitating the state border,” Lavrov said at a joint press conference with Armenian FM Ararat Mirzoyan. He said the 2020-2022 high-level trilateral agreements between Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan are the basis for this.

He highlighted the potential of the 3+3 regional cooperation format. He said the platform could become an important pillar for strengthening security and sustainable peace and developing partnership between regional countries.

He expressed confidence that Armenia and Azerbaijan can agree around the next meetings. “We are in favor of the next meetings taking place in the capitals of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Lavrov said.

The idea of the 3+3 platform for regional cooperation was brought forward by Turkiye and Azerbaijan after the 2020 Nagorno Karabakh war and was supposed to include Armenia, Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Iran, however Georgia repeatedly refused to participate. It is still, however, referred to as the 3+3 platform.