YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Russian President Vladimir Putin had telephone conversations with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on November 1 and November 2, respectively, according to the Kremlin.
“Issues of the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict were thoroughly discussed,” a short statement released by the Russian president’s office said.
On October 31, Pashinyan sent a letter to Putin in which, invoking a 1997 treaty with Russia, he formally asked Moscow “to define types and amount of assistance” that it can provide to Armenia. Pashinyan said that the fighting between ethnic Armenian forces in Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan that broke out in late September was approaching the country’s borders and that some encroachments on the territory of the Republic of Armenia have already taken place.
In response to the letter the same day, Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs reaffirmed Moscow’s commitment to Armenia under the 1997 Treaty on Friendship, Cooperation and Mutual Assistance, saying that “Russia will render all necessary assistance to Yerevan if military operations take place directly on the territory of Armenia.”
At the same time, the Russian ministry again called on the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict to halt military operations immediately, deescalate the situation and return to “substantive negotiations” to achieve a peaceful settlement.
Earlier, the Armenian prime minister also signaled Yerevan’s agreement to the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone, but said that such a move would require the consent of all parties to the conflict.
Meanwhile, President Aliyev on Monday called on Russia to maintain neutrality in the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh given its status as an international mediator.
