Azerbaijani president arrives in Russia on working visit

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev arrived in Russia on a working visit on May 25.

At Moscow's Vnukovo-2 International Airport, the head of state was met by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin and other officials, Caliber.Az reports, citing the presidential press service.

To recap, Russia brokers the next meeting between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Moscow on May 25. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan arrived in Russia on May 24 to attend peace talks with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin mediating.

Timeline:

May 1- 4: Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan held four-day peace talks facilitated by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Washington.  These talks, which represent the longest round of negotiations since the end of the Second Karabakh War in 2020, marked the third such ministerial meeting between Armenia and Azerbaijan as mediated by the United States since September 2022.

May 14: A trilateral meeting took place between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, EU Council President Charles Michel and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels. This was the first time the two leaders met in person since talks in Munich in February and after the two countries' foreign ministers' extensive discussions in Washington in early May.

After the Brussels talks, Charles Michel stressed that both sides recognised each other’s territorial integrity on the basis of the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration. Moreover, Michel’s statement also explicitly specifies the square kilometre area of both countries. This means Armenia has officially recognised the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast as part of Azerbaijan. On May 22, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reconfirmed in Yerevan that his country recognises Azerbaijan within a territory of 86,600 square kilometres, including Karabakh and some enclaves.

May 19: Bayramov and Mirzoyan met in Moscow. After the meeting of the two ministers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Armenia and Azerbaijan are close to agreeing an end to a blockade of transport links but more work is needed to seal a peace deal between the two countries.