Russian FM: Documents on stage-by-stage settlement of Karabakh conflict are being actively discussed - liberation of a number of areas, unlocking of communications

The decisions on Karabakh conflict settlement proposed last year at the meeting of Russian, Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in Moscow, are being actively discussed, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said at the online round table discussion.

“There are Madrid principles, there are documents prepared by the Russian Federation in 2010-2011, the so-called Kazan document. There are projects that were distributed in April last year in Moscow at the meeting of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan with the participation of the Co-Chairs, and they are now being actively discussed,” Lavrov said.

The Russian minister said that these documents imply "progress towards a settlement on the basis of a stage-by-stage approach, assuming at the first stage the solution of the most pressing problems, the liberation of a number of areas around Nagorno-Karabakh and the unlocking of transport, economic and other communications."

Lavrov also expressed confidence that their signing would have been the most important step in the implementation of the resolutions of the UN Security Council.

"I am convinced that when we come to the decision to sign these documents, it will be the most important step in the implementation of the resolutions of the UN Security Council, which are in question and which, once again, demanded to stop the war and start negotiating," Lavrov said.

"We started to negotiate, we need to agree now. This is what we are achieving as Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group,” the Russian minister said.

In addition, Lavrov called the established format of negotiations on the Karabakh settlement within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group a good and useful one.

"It is in it that this very demand of the Security Council to stop the war and start negotiations was embodied," he added.