MOSCOW (AP) – Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed his counterparts from Armenia and Azerbaijan on Monday to discuss reopening transport routes in the region that have been paralyzed for nearly three decades amid a conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh .
The negotiations came two months after a Russian-mediated truce ended weeks of violent fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces that left more than 6,000 dead.
Saluting Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the Kremlin, Putin said the peace agreement was successfully implemented, “creating the necessary basis for a long-term and full-fledged solution to the old conflict”.
The November 10 peace agreement ended 44 days of hostilities in which the Azerbaijani army defeated Armenian forces and regained control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and neighboring areas.
Nagorno-Karabakh is within Azerbaijan, but has been under the control of Armenian ethnic forces supported by Armenia since a separatist war ended in 1994. That war left Nagorno-Karabakh itself and substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.
Hostilities broke out in late September and the Azerbaijani military advanced deep into Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas, forcing Armenia to relinquish control over a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh and adjacent areas.
Under the peace agreement, Russia has sent some 2,000 peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh for at least five years.
The peace deal was celebrated in Azerbaijan as a major triumph, but it sparked outrage and mass protests in Armenia, where thousands of people have repeatedly taken to the streets demanding Pashinyan’s resignation. On Monday, several protesters tried to block a highway that connected the Armenian capital to the airport to prevent Pashinyan from traveling to Moscow, but the police dispersed them.
The Armenian Prime Minister defended the agreement as a painful but necessary measure that prevented Azerbaijan from invading the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Azerbaijan and its ally, Turkey, have closed their borders with Armenia since the beginning of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict decades ago, a blockade that paralyzed the landlocked country’s economy.
The peace agreement mediated by Russia provided for the reopening of transport routes, including a corridor linking Azerbaijan and its Nakhchivan enclave that borders Armenia, Turkey and Iran. Armenia, in turn, may use transit routes to Russia and Iran via the territory of Azerbaijan.
Putin noted on Monday that senior officials from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia will form a working group to discuss specific moves related to restoring transport routes in the region.
“The implementation of these agreements will benefit both the Armenian and the Azerbaijani people and the entire region,” said Putin after four hours of negotiations in the Kremlin before sitting down for separate meetings with Aliyev and Pashinyan.
Aliyev praised the importance of reopening transport links, saying that this will help to strengthen regional stability.
“This opens up completely new perspectives that we could not even imagine in the past,” he said, adding that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has become history.
Pashinyan contested this claim, arguing that Nagorno-Karabakh’s status has not yet been determined, but he also welcomed plans to restore transit routes.