Azernews.Az

eMOSCOW – Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will shortly decide on further steps towards a settlement of the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was quoted as saying on Wednesday by Russia’s state news agency Itar Tass.

"Dmitry Medvedev, as a mediator in the Karabakh talks, with full support of the US and French presidents, is now completing the analysis of the situation after the Kazan meeting," Lavrov said after talks with his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandyan.

President Medvedev hosted Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenia’s Serzh Sargsyan in the Volga city of Kazan on June 24. Though both the mediating countries and the conflict parties had urged to sign an agreement on a roadmap of the conflict settlement during the summit, such a document was not signed, and the parties even traded accusations after the meeting.

According to analysts, the summit has not yielded significant positive results, since the sides could not reach a compromise decision on some key issues of a Nagorno Karabakh settlement. Nevertheless, experts believe that it is too early to speak of a predicament, since the parties agreed to continue seeking common viewpoints to bring their positions closer.

The Russian foreign minister said further that at this point a change in the format of mediation over Karabakh settlement would not bring benefits. He noted that the co-chairs of the mediating OSCE Minsk Group hold regular meetings with the conflict parties and pay visits to Baku, Yerevan and Khankandi, the center of the self-proclaimed Nagorno Karabakh republic.

"I don’t think that talking about changing the format of mediation would be useful, particularly at such a crucial stage [in the peace process]," Lavrov said. "Such ideas deflect attention from the main point… The main thing is political will [of the conflicting sides]."

Nalbandyan in turn claimed that attempts to put the Karabakh conflict on discussion at the UN General Assembly and other assemblies are useless, in an apparent swipe at Azerbaijan.

"No parliamentary assembly has ever resolved a conflict to date," he said. "It is illogical to think about changing the format now."

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 Armenian armed forces since a ceasefire was signed in 1994. Peace talks are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs dubbed the Basic Principles. 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 to return to their homes.