Russian FM: Azerbaijan returns lands belonging to it

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said that Russia's proposal to deploy a mission of the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) in Armenia is still relevant.

“If Armenia is still interested, the mission can be deployed within one or two days,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian media, Caliber.Az reports.

“When Armenia and Azerbaijan continue looking for ways to stabilise the situation in the Caucasus, the CSTO is also ready to help. After there was a surge of violence in September last year, about 300 people died on both sides, we immediately sent a mission. We received a request from Armenia, the CSTO secretary general went to the border with a special mission of experts and brought a plan for the deployment of the CSTO on Armenia’s territory, which borders with Azerbaijan,” the Russian minister said.

He noted that this plan was prepared quite a long time ago, but Russia was not hurried by the Armenian side.

“As a result, the text of the corresponding decision was prepared at the summit in Yerevan. However, Yerevan said that a decision would be needed only if it categorically condemned Azerbaijan's actions,” Lavrov added.

“Not everyone was ready to go for it not only because they [CSTO member states] wanted to shield someone and not to support anyone. The history of this entire Karabakh war goes back decades when for many years Armenia held seven districts around Karabakh under occupation, and then, when despairing of resolving the issue by political means, Russia offered options that the former Armenian leadership did not perceive positively, willing to keep territories that it never claimed. After all, Azerbaijan has returned the lands belonging to it,” the minister said.

“Now when Armenia and Azerbaijan, together with the European Union, have signed a document on their readiness to conclude a peace treaty, on the conditions outlined in the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991, it is difficult for Moscow to decide on further steps because the Alma-Ata Declaration says that the borders between the newly independent states will pass along the administrative borders of the Soviet Union, the union republics, including the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic, which included the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region. However, the situation is multilayered,” he added.

“The fact that the CSTO in this difficult situation had the plan to deploy a peacekeeping operation was a very important achievement. This proposal is still relevant. If our Armenian friends and allies are still interested in it, then this mission can be deployed within one or two days,” Lavrov said.

The summit of the leaders of the CSTO member states was held in Yerevan on November 23. During the summit, it was impossible to sign two documents, namely, a declaration and a statement on rendering assistance to Armenia. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that he refused to sign the document due to the Organisation's refusal to condemn Azerbaijan.