Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders in Russia for talks
MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday hosted his counterparts from Armenia and Azerbaijan to discuss reopening transport routes in the region that have been paralyzed for nearly three decades amid a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.
The talks came two months after a Russia-brokered truce ended weeks of fierce fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that left more than 6,000 people dead.
Greeting Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the Kremlin, Putin said that the peace agreement has been successfully implemented, “creating the necessary basis for a long-term and full-format settlement of the old conflict.”
The Nov. 10 peace deal ended 44 days of hostilities in which the Azerbaijani army routed Armenian forces and reclaimed control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.
Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. That war left Nagorno-Karabakh itself and substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.
Hostilities flared up in late September and the Azerbaijani military pushed deep into Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas, forcing Armenia to relinquish control over a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.
Under the peace deal, Russia has deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh for at least five years.
The peace agreement was celebrated in Azerbaijan as a major triumph, but sparked outrage and mass protests in Armenia, where thousands repeatedly took to the streets demanding Pashinyan's resignation. Scores of protesters on Monday tried to block a highway linking the Armenian capital with the airport to prevent...
