Azernews.Az

KAZAN – Azerbaijan and Armenia failed to come to an agreement on the path to peace in Nagorno Karabakh after a meeting of their leaders in Russia on Friday, but said some progress had been made, Russian RIA Novosti news agency reported.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev hosted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian leader Serzh Sargsyan in the Volga city of Kazan, for another round of talks seeking to end the two-decade conflict over Nagorno Karabakh.

"The heads of state confirmed mutual understanding on the range of issues that contribute to the creation of the conditions for approving the basic principles [of the Karabakh settlement]," a joint statement said.

Azerbaijan and Armenia waged a brutal war in the early 1990s. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh, has been under the occupation of the Armenian armed forces since a fragile ceasefire was signed in 1994. 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 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.

The Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian presidents stressed that the Kazan meeting discussed the ongoing efforts to agree upon a draft of the Basic Principles.

President Aliyev and Sargsyan thanked the leaders of the countries co-chairing the Minsk Group - the U.S., France and Russia –for their "regular attention" to the Nagorno Karabakh settlement.

Aliyev and Sargsyan praised the Russian president’s personal efforts to assist in reaching agreements, the statement said.

Prior to the three-hour meeting in Kazan, both the co-chairing countries and the conflict parties made statements urging to sign an agreement on the basic principles of the conflict settlement during the Kazan summit.

Presidents Aliyev and Sargsyan last met with their Russian counterpart Medvedev’s mediation in Sochi in early March.*