YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 17, ARMENPRESS. The status of Nagorno Karabakh is not decided yet, ARMENPRESS reports Russian President Vladimir Putin told Russia-24.

''We have agreed to preserve the status-quo, and it's still necessary to decide what will happen in the future. I think that if favorable conditions are created, relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan are restored, including between the peoples at the social level, they will also create conditions to decide the status of Nagorno Karabakh'', Putin said.

''As refers to recognizing or not recognizing Karabakh as an independent and sovereign state, it can be variously assessed, but that was undoubtedly an important factor, including recently, during I hope the already finished bloody conflict, because Karabakh’s not being recognized, including by Armenia, left a significant mark on the course of events and their perception.

It is necessary to say directly that after the criminal actions of the former Georgian leadership, I mean the attack on our peacekeepers in South Ossetia, Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We also recognized that the expression of the will of the people living in Crimea and the desire of the people living there to reunite with Russia is fair, we met the expectations of the people, we did it openly.

Some may like it, some may not, but we did it based on the interests of the people living there, on the interests of Russia, and we are not ashamed to speak directly about it.

This had not been done for Karabakh, and that, of course, left a significant impact on the developments'', Putin said.