Addressing the forum, president Ilham Aliyev accused Armenia of trying to change the format of the Karabakh peace negotiations. he rejected these attempts as "unacceptable and ineffective"

Salome Zurabishvili was welcomed by her Armenian counterpart, Armen Sargissian. The presidents held a tete a tete meeting, after which there was also a meeting between delegations from the two countries headed by the two presidents.

The Russian foreign ministry said that "repeated appeals of the Russian side to the Azerbaijani side about the inadmissibility of discriminatory actions based on ethnicity against the citizens of the Russian Federation arriving in Azerbaijan Republic are ignored"

A joint meeting of the security councils of Armenia and of the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic was held in Stepanakert. Pashinyan speaks again about preparing populations for peace and of the need for NKR to be involved in the talks

Pashinyan calls meeting of National Security Council in Stepanakert, as Baku launches large scale military manoevres.

For his part, visiting Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov hailed the "brotherly" relations between Tehran and Baku, saying there are no obstacles to the enhancement of political, economic, cultural and social ties with Tehran.

In an unusually long statement issued on Saturday (9 March), the co-Chairmen of the OSCE Minsk Group said they are preparing for a Pashinyan-Aliyev summit under their auspices and underlined "the importance of maintaining an environment conducive to productive discussions"

.

EUSR Toivo Klaar reaffirmed that the European Union is interested in making a positive contribution to the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

According to the press service of the European External Action Service, Morgherini "advocated Prime Minister Pashinyan’s full engagement in negotiations without preconditions, under the auspices of the Minsk Group Co-Chairs".