Azerbaijani, Russian Presidents hold bilateral meeting in Sochi

Sochi, The Gulf Observer: A bilateral meeting was held between President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin in Sochi, media reports.

Russian President Vladimir Putin welcomed President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and thanked him for visiting Sochi.

Putin said that as a matter of fact, the meeting is organized on initiative of President Ilham Aliyev and on the initiative of the Prime Minister of Armenia. Moreover Putin said in my opinion, the meeting is important.

President Putin said, “The purpose of this meeting, is to ensure the implementation of all our agreements that were reached in 2020 and 2021. Russia has played a noticeable and important role in resolving the conflict. And now our peacekeeping contingent is fulfilling its mission, as it should do”.

Putin also said, “Today, of course, we will need to talk about the situation that has developed, look for ways to resolve issues that have not yet been resolved. In this regard, I would also note an important component of an economic nature: we have created a trilateral working group, which is headed by deputy prime ministers. They have advanced quite far in terms of resolving the issues that we spoke about two years ago. Apparently, it is necessary to give an additional impetus in this area as well. I know that the Azerbaijani side is working quite actively in this direction”.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said, “Thank you, dear Vladimir Vladimirovich, thank you for the invitation. I am pleased to see you again. You and I met last month as well, and this month we had the opportunity to discuss bilateral relations in sufficient detail and note the positive dynamics in these relations”.

President Ilham said that today’s meeting is dedicated to our regional affairs. He expressed his gratitude to President Putin for the role he played in the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. A trilateral declaration was signed two years ago, putting an end to the long-term conflict.

Moreover, President of Azerbaijan said that It is now time to speak and act towards the normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Of course, we highly appreciate your personal role in this matter.

Azerbaijan put forward five basic principles relatively recently, on the basis of which the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia should be normalized. These are the fundamental principles of international law, and I think that normalization can be achieved on this basis.

The Karabakh conflict has already been consigned to history. It was resolved two years ago, so there is practically nothing to discuss in this context. The normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations is a format that, of course, requires very serious steps. We look forward to your continued active personal role and Russia’s role in achieving these goals.