It is up to the parties to resolve the Karabakh conflict – Lavrov
Russia attaches importance to the additional efforts towards stabilizing the situation on Karabakh-Azerbaijan line of contact, Russia's foreign minister said on Monday.
“I think it’s important to take additional measures to make the situation on the line of contact calmer. This would also help us to proceed to a political settlement,” Sergey Lavrov told reporters at an annual news conference, summing up the results of Moscow’s diplomatic activities in 2017, TASS reported.
According to the top Russian diplomat, the NK issue cannot be resolved once and for all with a single document. He stressed a step-by-step approach is needed that will show what can be done now and outline the avenues of working on issues that require additional discussions with a view of reaching a final settlement over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Russian FM stressed that diplomats have been working intensively and regularly to settle the conflict. Lavrov noted that Russia cannot have concrete plans over the conflict settlement, since it is only up to the parties to the conflict to resolve the issue.
According to the diplomat, Russia, along with other participants of the process, is trying to find common approaches to the conflict and at the same time “hinting compromises” that can reduce the parties’ positions to a common denominator on issues they reach a common ground.
“We are expecting some positive impulses coming from both countries – Armenia and Azerbaijan,” he added.