YEREVAN, DECEMBER 8, ARMENPRESS. The meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents in 2017 is considered a positive step in the NK conflict settlement process, Russian FM Sergey Lavrov told a press conference in Vienna.

“It is necessary to rely on common approaches in any conflict. First of these is direct dialogue between conflicting countries, which exists in the NK conflict settlement issue. Certainly it doesn’t yet give us serious progress, however the fact that dialogue happened this year on the level of presidents and numerously also on the level of foreign ministers, seems positive to us. We will continue to work in the direction which implies the collective approach of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs – Russia, US and France”, he said.

He reminded that the MG co-chairing countries reaffirmed their approaches in the statement.

“It includes principles of the settlement, which the sides have accepted, however haven’t yet made into practical steps”, he said.