“The focus was on regional issues,” read a Russian Foreign Ministry statement on the talks.
“Further steps were discussed in the context of unblocking all economic and transport links, delimitating and demarcating the Armenian-Azerbaijani border as well as working out the parameters of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” it said.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry also reported a detailed discussion of these issues but did not elaborate.
“Ararat Mirzoyan stressed the importance of the Russian side’s efforts, including in the framework of the co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group, to facilitate a lasting and comprehensive settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict,” the ministry said in a statement.
Mirzoyan phoned Lavrov last Thursday the day after the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan met again in Brussels for talks organized by the European Union. Moscow has been very critical of the EU’s involvement in Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks, saying that it is driven by anti-Russian “geopolitical ambitions.”
Both Lavrov and Mirzoyan praised Russian-Armenian bilateral ties. According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, they discussed preparations for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “planned state visit” to Yerevan. The ministry did not specify any dates for that trip.
Putin and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian are due to meet later this week on the sidelines of an economic forum in Russia.