Medvedev expected to make decision over Karabakh settlement
Russia's President Dmitry Medvedev will soon decide on further steps towards the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
"As a mediator in the Karabakh talks, Medvedev is already ending the analysis of the situation after the Kazan-hosted trilateral presidential meeting," Itar-Tass Russian News Agency quoted Lavrov as saying.
The Russian FM made the statement after a meeting with his Armenian counterpart Edward Nalbandian who is in Russia at the invitation of Lavrov. The two foreign ministers discussed a broad range of issues, including the Kazan meeting.
"The Russian, Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents met in Kazan on July 24 and discussed efforts aimed at working out key principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. The leaders of three countries said they had coordinated several important issues, which would facilitate the creation of conditions for reaching a final agreement on key principles. We hope that this work will continue in the short run," said the Russian Foreign Minister.
Sergei Lavrov is expected to visit Baku and Yerevan in the near future.
The Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan met in Kazan on June 24 in an effort to reach an agreement on Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the talks mediated by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev failed to produce an agreement. The presidents issued a joint statement following the summit which read, in part, that they had "reviewed progress in the work to coordinate the Basic Principles for Nagorno-Karabakh settlement project. The presidents acknowledged that common understanding had been reached on a number of issues whose resolution will help create the conditions for approval of the Basic Principles."
