Azernews.Az

BAKU – Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian foreign ministers reached some progress in settling the Nagorno Karabakh conflict at their meeting in Moscow on Saturday but a number of issues remain unresolved, the Azerbaijani minister, Elmar Mammadyarov, said Monday.

Mammadyarov and his counterparts, Eduard Nalbandyan and Sergei Lavrov, said after the ministerial that they had managed to bring closer the sides’ positions on basic principles for settling the long-standing conflict. A document outlining the principles agreed by the ministers is due to be discussed at the meeting of the three countries’ presidents, due on June 25 in the Russian city of Kazan.

Mammadyarov told a news conference with his Swedish counterpart Carl Bildt in Baku on Monday that substantial discussions that had taken place during the Moscow meeting lasted three hours.

"We touched upon issues that are yet to be agreed, and there are indeed advances, rapprochement on some issues. But some other issues remain open," the minister said, but he did not elaborate.

Mammadyarov added that the outcomes of the ministerial will be reported to the presidents, and if they agree, the issues in question will be raised during the talks in Kazan.

Swedish Minister Bildt said his country supports the ongoing peace talks, adding that all means available should be used to move forward the settlement of the Karabakh conflict.

Bildt said that to resolve the Karabakh conflict, it is necessary to consider similar conflicts that have found their solution, but said he was opposed to applying these disputes to the Karabakh problem the same way. He was replying to a question about a possible application of the Aland Islands model for Karabakh settlement.

The Karabakh conflict flared up in the late 1980s due to Armenia's territorial claims. Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, since the two countries signed a precarious cease-fire in 1994 following a lengthy war. Peace talks are underway on the basis of the Madrid principles, a peace outline proposed by the mediating OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairs.

The West has called on Armenia and Azerbaijan to endorse the basic principles for settlement drafted in 2007, which stipulate a gradual Armenian withdrawal from the territories around Nagorno Karabakh and an "interim status" for the region, giving it enhanced legitimacy, but not independence.