Presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia issued a joint statement on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement

President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and President of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev have issued a joint statement after the talks on the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.

The statement says: “The Presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan, of the Republic of Armenia and of the Russian Federation met in Sochi on 23 January 2012 at the invitation of the President of the Russian Federation to discuss progress and prospects for the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.

The three Presidents pointed to a large amount of work to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict carried out since their meeting on 2 November 2008, when the Moscow Declaration was adopted. The Presidents said that as a result of intense negotiations, they had reached progress in agreeing the basic principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement.

Considering the importance of a transition to the development of a Peace Agreement, the Presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan and of the Republic of Armenia expressed their readiness to accelerate the achievement of agreement on basic principles on the basis of the work done thus far.

The two Presidents gave a high assessment to the mediation efforts of the Russian Federation and other OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries and expressed hope that Russia, France and the USA would continue to play an active role in the settlement until a lasting peace and stability are established in the region.

In furtherance of the joint statement issued in Sochi on 5 March 2011, the Presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan, of the Republic of Armenia and of the Russian Federation took into consideration the report by co-chair countries on the mechanism for conducting investigations along the ceasefire line which they had developed together with the personal representative of the OSCE chairman-in-office, and gave the instruction to continue this work.

The Presidents reaffirmed that one of the confidence-building measures in the context of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement is to develop humanitarian contacts between the parties. In this regard, the Presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan and of the Republic of Armenia declared their readiness to further promote dialogue among intellectuals, academic and public circles.”