ArmInfo. The situation in the zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, including the recent incidents, was discussed during the trilateral meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia in Minsk on October 14 on the sidelines of the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers.
This was announced on October 21 during a weekly briefing by official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova, referring to the issue of creating incident prevention mechanisms. She recalled that this issue is the subject of regular contacts at the level of the command of the Russian peacekeeping contingent, the general staffs of the Armed Forces of Armenia and Azerbaijan. "And we are making every effort to prevent violations of the ceasefire in the zone of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent," she said.
Regarding the establishment of economic and humanitarian ties in the region, Zakharova drew attention to the fact that a regular meeting of the Working Group on this issue at the level of the Deputy Prime Ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia was held in Moscow the yesterday and stated that information on the results of the already eighth meeting was contained on the website of the government of the Russian Federation. At the same time, she added that the day before of the above-mentioned meeting, on October 19, five Armenian captives had returned home from Azerbaijan through the mediation of Russian peacekeepers. "We welcome this step of Baku and hope that the process of returning the prisoners of war will continue. In total, thanks to, including Russian mediation, from December 2020 to this day, 122 captives have been exchanged. 105 people returned to Armenia, 17 to Azerbaijan. We intend to continue to provide all the necessary assistance to normalize relations between Yerevan and Baku on all tracks, "she said. The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry also emphasized that Russian business is ready to participate in projects implemented in the territories passed to Azerbaijan on the basis of a trilateral statement of November 9, 2020.
When asked to comment on the information on the attempts to disrupt the deliveries of goods from Iran to Russia through the customs points of Azerbaijan, the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that Moscow is in favor of reducing tensions on the Iranian-Azerbaijani border. "We are convinced that all issues in relations between these two close states should be resolved exclusively by political and diplomatic means. For our part, we are making efforts to unblock all economic and transport links in the Caucasus. We proceed from the fact that such work should, of course, take into account the interests of all countries in the region, including Iran, "Zakharova summed up.