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Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has announced that Turkey can play a positive role in the settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

“The fact that Turkey can play a positive role by ensuring the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, ensuring normal economic cooperation in the region, is such an important factor that we always consider it,” TASS cited Lavrov as saying on October 14, Trend reports.

Armenia broke out a lengthy war against Azerbaijan laying territorial claims on its South Caucasus neighbor. Since a war in the early 1990s, Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven surrounding regions. More than 20,000 Azerbaijanis were killed and over 1 million were displaced as a result of the large-scale hostilities.

Turkey is a member of the OSCE Minsk Group, established to mediate between the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, and supports the conflict resolution within the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

Lavrov continued that the progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict’s settlement will be the key to Armenia-Turkey relations’ normalization.

The Turkish-Armenian border was closed in early 1990s in response to Armenia's so-called "genocide" claims against Ankara and occupation of Azerbaijani territories, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.

Armenia, which is in a state of isolation in the region because of its aggressive policy against its neighbors, and West periodically urge Ankara to open the borders, while Turkey repeatedly stated that the Ankara-Yerevan normalization of ties is impossible without the liberation of the occupied territories of Azerbaijan.

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