Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian Foreign Ministers Meet in Dushanbe

DUSHANBE — Foreign Ministers of Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian held a trilateral meeting in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan on Thursday and reaffirmed their countries’ commitment to implementing Armenian-Azerbaijani agreements brokered by Russia.

It was also announced that two working groups, one on unblocking transport connections between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the other on delimiting the countries’ border, will convene on Monday and Tuesday in Moscow.

“We are interested in turning the South Caucasus into a zone of peace, sustainable development, and prosperity,” Sergey Lavrov said. “I hope that today’s meeting will make it possible to move forward along the path that was outlined by our leaders.”

“We are ready to continue all work on the current formats,” Mirzoyan said, listing the unblocking of transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan, normalizing relations between the two countries, and “solving all remaining problems,” including the release of all remaining Armenian prisoners of war held in Azerbaijan.

“We believe that there is a good prospect (and) a good opportunity to achieve results and achieve full implementation of tripartite statements,” Bayramov said.

The trilateral encounter followed Lavrov’s separate talks with Bayramov and Mirzoyan. Mirzoyan announced that two long-discussed working groups on key Armenia-Azerbaijan issues will convene next week in Russia.

“On May 16-17, a meeting will take place in Moscow on the matter of unblocking connections,” Mirzoyan said. “A bilateral meeting on the issues of delimitation and border security will be organized again in Moscow during the same days.”