Sergey Lavrov and Karabakh conflict

“The work over the so- called basic principles, yielded some results in terms of finding a formulation that at this stage can afford to fix the parties' consent. That does not mean that all will be resolved upon the completion of work on the basic principles,' Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told in an interview with Azeri journalist about the present stage of Karabakh conflict solution.
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“ After the basic principles, it will be necessary to develop a juridical document - a peace agreement, which will require much greater penetration into the details. Nevertheless, the basic principles, as a political document, would be of great importance,” he mentioned.

According to Lavrov, they could not achieve agreement on every point with regards to the draft basic principles yet, but they have almost reached a compromise formulation on a significant part of the text.

“We had a very simple proposal - to fix two or three questions, which are not yet subject to the agreed formulation, for further discussions. To record clearly that there will be no final agreement without these two questions. At this stage, it would allow fixing the progress that has been made over the significant part of the text and at the same time, to show that still some questions are left, there are two to three concrete problems, which require further efforts, and to consolidate what has been achieved so far. The co-chairs have supported us in this regard,” he said.

According to the Russian Foreign Minister, approving the basic principles with 2-3 uncoordinated milestones would give an important political signal, which is awaited in the international community, in Europe, that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan clearly aim to resolve this conflict and they clearly aim at a peaceful settlement, which was mentioned by the co-chairs many times, stipulated in the so-called Meiendorf declaration signed by the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Coming to the protocol signed in Yerevan about the prolongation of the Russian Military base presence in Armenia, he noted that it extends the agreement on the presence of Russian military bases in Armenia by 49 years and nothing more.

“It does not change either the function of the military base, which Russia has in Armenia, or the number of the servicemen at this base, or the number of arms at the base. The main purpose of Russian military base is to ensure the interests of the Russian Federation. This goal was set before the Russian military base when the agreement was signed. This goal does not change with the extension of the agreement into the next 49 years,” he concluded.

Public Radio of Armenia