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Beginning of trilateral talks

President of Russia Vladimir Putin: Mr Aliyev, Mr Pashinyan, colleagues, friends,

I appreciate your prompt response to my proposal to hold another meeting, and I hope that it will pave the way for the practical resolution of some of the issues that we have been discussing for a long time.

We have achieved much in this format; not only did hostilities stop in autumn 2020, but efforts were also launched to unblock economic and transport ties in the region and delimit the border.

Many events have taken place since then; I will not talk long about each of them, or go into detail now. In general, I would say that, despite all the difficulties and problems, and we still have many of them, the situation is moving in the direction of a settlement. One of the issues here is transport ties. The three of us have talked about this in some detail just now in bilateral meetings, and there are still a few unresolved issues. But, in my opinion – we talked about this with our colleagues from the Azerbaijani side and with our colleagues from the Armenian side – in my opinion, these are mere technicalities.

We also discussed this topic at length. It has to do with terminology. These terms must reflect a clear understanding of the realities and events that will follow the signing of the relevant documents. But in my opinion and in our opinion – I mean all three of us, the Prime Minister of Armenia, the President of Azerbaijan and myself – these are surmountable obstacles.

By and large, these are not obstacles at all, but purely technical issues. Therefore, we have now agreed that in the near future, in a week – I will now ask my colleagues to agree on this date as well – the deputy prime ministers of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia will meet and clear up any outstanding issues. It seems to me that this is a good agreement, which gives us hope that the outstanding issues will be resolved.

As for the timing, we agreed to hold it in one week. Today is Thursday. Do the Armenian or Azerbaijani delegations have anything to say? Because our colleagues will have to agree on this among themselves. Is one week all right?

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: Mr Aliyev?

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev: Yes.

Vladimir Putin: This is where we thank the press, and will work a little behind closed doors now.

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