The multilateral talks would be held within the framework of the so-called “Consultative Regional Platform 3+3.” Deputy foreign ministers of all regional states except Georgia formally created it at a December 2021 meeting in Moscow.
Georgia said at the time that it will not join the cooperation framework because of its long-running conflict with Russia. No further meetings are known to have been held in that format since then.
Some regional players, notably Iran, sought to revive the format after last month’s Azerbaijani takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh. Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian told a visiting senior Armenian official early this month that it could be an effective mechanism for addressing security challenges in the region. Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev predicted afterwards that the six nations will hold more multilateral talks.
The Azerbaijani news agency Trend reported on Thursday that their foreign ministers, including Armenia’s Ararat Mirzoyan, will meet in Tehran soon. The Armenian Foreign Ministry did not confirm its participation. According to Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian, the Armenian government has not yet decided whether to attend the meeting.
Amid its deepening rift with Moscow, Yerevan now appears to be putting the emphasis on Western mediation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian expressed hope earlier this week that he and Aliyev will meet in Brussels again and finalize a bilateral peace treaty before the end of this year.
Russia claims that the main goal of the U.S. and European Union peace efforts is to drive it out of the South Caucasus. Iran also opposes the West’s involvement in regional affairs.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov spoke with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov by phone on Friday. According to a Russian readout of the call, they discussed, among other things, their countries’ “approaches to the activities of the Consultative Regional Platform 3+3.”