Azernews.Az

MOSCOW – The presidents of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia will meet in the Russian city of Kazan on Friday, June 24 for another around of trilateral talks on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, the Kremlin was quoted by Russia’s state news agency Itar-Tass as saying on Monday.

"Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan will arrive in Kazan on June 24 at the invitation of their Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev for a regular tripartite meeting on the Nagorno Karabakh settlement," the Kremlin’s press service reported.

The meeting will be held on the sidelines of the annual horse race named after the Russian president.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said Moscow "pins big hopes" on the upcoming meeting.

"As you know, in compliance with the earlier reached agreements, the upcoming summit will focus on the so-called basic principles of the Nagorno Karabakh settlement," Lukashevich said.

"The principles were being finalized at the meetings of the three countries’ foreign ministers that were held in Moscow in April and June. The discussions showed that the parties had succeeded in bringing closer their positions on key issues. The presidents will discuss these issues and take corresponding decisions," he added.

Lukashevich said Russia hopes for progress in the peace process and that the process "will move more actively".

"This is indicated in the statement of the three presidents [of the U.S., France and Russia], the co-chairmen of the [mediating] Minsk Group, made in Deauville. It was, perhaps, the first time that the task of achieving specific arrangements was set so clearly and precisely," Lukashevich said.

In their statement, issued at the G8 summit in the French resort of Deauville on May 26, Presidents Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev called on the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia to finalize the basic principles of a peace agreement during the forthcoming Kazan summit.

Azerbaijan and Armenia waged a brutal war which claimed some 30,000 lives and displaced about a million Azerbaijanis. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, has been under the occupation of the Armenian armed forces since a ceasefire was signed in 1994.

Peace talks are underway on the basis of the Madrid principles, a peace outline proposed by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. The principles include the return of the territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh to Azerbaijani control; determining the final legal status of Nagorno Karabakh; a corridor linking Armenia to the region; and the right of all internally displaced persons and refugees to return to their homes.