The first direct talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the ministerial level since the current aggravation of the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh have not yet brought the expected result. The meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Jeyhun Bayramov began in Moscow on Friday, October 9 is closed and has been going on for 8 hours.

On the eve of it, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that the possibility of a truce depends on the position of Armenia. Yerevan wanted to “make the negotiation process endless,” Aliyev said. In his opinion, the conflict should be settled on the basis of the principles of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

The situation in Nagorno-Karabakh escalated sharply on September 27 after Azerbaijan launched a large-scale military operation to regain control of this region, inhabited mainly by ethnic Armenians. Both sides accuse each other of targeting civilian targets.

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