Azernews.Az

By Sara Rajabova

The Russian Foreign Ministry has welcomed the resumption of contacts between Azerbaijan and Armenia at the highest level, referring to it as one of the major foreign policy events in 2013.

Moscow appreciates the recent resumption of direct dialogue between Azerbaijan and Armenia, the Foreign Ministry report said.

Russia made targeted efforts in the context of finding political and diplomatic solutions to the conflicts in the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) area, the report reads.

"The steps taken by the Russian side in the process settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict carried out in close cooperation with the other states-OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs (France and the U.S.)," the report said.

It also noted that through the joint efforts fundamental agreement on the resumption of Azerbaijani-Armenian contacts at the highest level was reached.

Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents met in Vienna on November 19, along with the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group, to eye the ways to resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.

Also, foreign ministers of the two countries met in Kyiv on December 5 within the 20th OSCE Ministerial Council.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict emerged in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Since a lengthy war in the early 1990s that displaced over one million Azerbaijanis, Armenian armed forces have occupied over 20 percent of Azerbaijan's internationally recognized territory, including Nagorno-Karabakh and seven adjacent regions.

The UN Security Council's four resolutions on Armenian withdrawal have not been enforced to this day.

Peace talks, mediated by Russia, France and the U.S. through the OSCE Minsk Group, are underway on the basis of a peace outline proposed by the Minsk Group co-chairs and dubbed the Madrid Principles. The negotiations have been largely fruitless so far.