The Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev met in the Black Sea city of Sochi on Friday, 26 November 2021.
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The long awaited meeting of the three leaders came after more than one year since the end of the 44 day Karabakh war, during which the process to bring peace and stability to the South Caucasus appeared to be faltering. The Sochi meeting has been hailed by the three countries participating in it as a success, and as a start of a new chapter in relations.
At the end of their three hour meeting, the three leaders adopted a joint statement, which we publish here in full:
“We, the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia N.V.Pashinyan, the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan I.H. Aliyev, President of the Russian Federation V.V.Putin, met on November 26 in Sochi and discussed the implementation process of the declaration of November 9, 2020 on the complete ceasefire and termination of all types of military operations in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone and the implementation process of the January 11, 2021 statement on unblocking all economic and transport infrastructures of the region.
We reaffirmed commitment to the further and consistent implementation and unconditional observance of all the provisions of the November 9, 2020 declaration and January 11, 2021 statement for the benefit of the stability, security and economic development of the South Caucasus. We agreed to intensify joint efforts aimed at the immediate solution of the remaining issues arising from November 9, 2020 and January 11, 2021 statements.
We mentioned the significant contribution of the Russian peacekeeping mission in stabilizing the situation and ensuring security in the region.
We agreed to take steps to increase the level of stability and security on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border, to push the process of establishment of a bilateral commission with the advisory participation of the Russian Federation based on the application of the sides, on delimitation, and afterwards demarcation, of the state border between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan.
We highly appreciated the activity of the trilateral working group on unblocking all economic and transport communications of the region, established in accordance with the January 11, 2021 statement under the joint chairmanship of the Deputy Prime Ministers of the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Armenia and the Russian Federation. We stressed the need to launch specific programs as soon as possible, aimed at identifying the economic potential of the region.
The Russian Federation will continue to provide the necessary assistance for normalizing relations between the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia, building an atmosphere of trust between the Azerbaijani and Armenian peoples, and establishing good-neighborly relations in the region."
