Azernews.Az

Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan has confirmed the reports about the upcoming trilateral meeting of the presidents of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Russia to discuss the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

"An agreement on the trilateral meeting has been reached, and the venue and date of the meeting will be announced in due time," Armenia’s News.am website quoted Nalbandyan as saying at a press conference on Monday.

Commenting on the format of the talks, Nalbandyan said it "has proved its viability and efficiency" and expressed confidence that trilateral discussions would be continued.

Russian media reported earlier that the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian Presidents Ilham Aliyev, Serzh Sargsyan and Dmitry Medvedev are due to hold their next meeting on January 23-24 in the Russian city of Sochi.

Nine such trilateral meetings on the Karabakh conflict have been held since 2008. During the latest meeting, hosted by President Medvedev in June 2011 in the Volga city of Kazan, the parties did not agree on a roadmap of a peace agreement, despite calls from the leaders of the mediating countries – the United States, Russia and France.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a lengthy war in the early 1990s. About 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including the Nagorno Karabakh region, has been under the occupation of Armenian armed forces since a fragile ceasefire was signed in 1994. Numerous rounds of OSCE-brokered negotiations have been fruitless so far.

This story is published by AzerNEWS Weekly under a project funded by the Foundation for State Assistance to the Development of the Media under the President of the Azerbaijan Republic.