Just over a week after his state visit to Baku, Russian President Vladimir Putin called Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Wednesday to discuss his recent proposal to help resolve the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict.
According to a statement from the Kremlin, the two leaders talked about “the preparation of the Azerbaijani-Armenian peace treaty, delimitation and demarcation of the border, and unblocking transport links between the two countries.”
“The Russian side reaffirmed its readiness to provide all possible assistance to Baku and Yerevan in developing mutually acceptable solutions,” the statement added, without providing further details.
Putin initially made this offer during his meeting with Aliyev in Baku on August 19 and discussed it with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan over the phone four days later. Pashinyan’s response to the proposal remains unclear. Earlier this year, Yerevan essentially dismissed similar Russian proposals amid growing tensions with Moscow.
The Azerbaijani government-linked news agency APA reported that Putin and Aliyev also “exchanged views” on a potential land corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through Armenia’s strategically important Syunik region.
A Russian-mediated ceasefire that ended the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh obliges Armenia to “ensure the security of transport links” between Nakhichevan and the rest of Azerbaijan, with Russian border guards overseeing the movement of people, vehicles, and goods through Syunik.
During Putin’s visit to Baku, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov accused Armenia of “sabotaging” these agreements in an interview with Russian state television. The Armenian Foreign Ministry fired back, arguing that Lavrov “cannot fail to see that not a single key point of the [2020 ceasefire] statement has been adhered to.”
The ministry seemed to be referring to Russia’s inability to prevent Azerbaijan’s September 2023 military operation, which restored Azerbaijani control over Karabakh and led to the displacement of its ethnic Armenian population. Additionally, Russian peacekeepers stationed in Karabakh did not intervene when Baku blocked the Lachin corridor, which connects the region to Armenia, in November 2022.
Many in Armenia believe that the Azerbaijani military actions and the subsequent exodus of Karabakh Armenians have effectively nullified the ceasefire agreement and other Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani arrangements.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova emphasized that these agreements remain the only viable framework for a comprehensive settlement of the conflict.
“Attempts to challenge them are extremely dangerous and could create a vacuum of mutual obligations between the parties in their still unresolved bilateral relations,” Zakharova warned, in what appeared to be a caution to Yerevan.
