“The priorities stemming from issues of vital importance to Artsakh [the Armenian name for Nagorno-Karabakh] and Armenia made it imperative to hold regular discussions in that format during the last Artsakh war and in the post-war period,” Sarkisian’s office said.
Earlier on Friday, former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s spokesperson Arman Musinyan also confirmed that former presidents of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh – Levon Ter-Petrosian, Robert Kocharian, Serzh Sargsian, Arkady Ghukasian and Bako Sahakian – met yesterday “to discuss the post-war situation in Artsakh and a number of issues concerning possible further developments.”
The report about the meeting of former Armenian and Karabakh leaders comes amid an announced meeting of Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov with his Armenian counterpart Ara Ayvazian that is due to take place on April 2.
Maria Zakharova, an official representative of Russia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said that Lavrov will also meet with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov.
Issues related to Nagorno-Karabakh and the South Caucasus region are expected to feature prominently at the meetings.
Meanwhile, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian had a telephone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday.
The Armenian premier’s press office, in particular, said that “the two leaders addressed the process of the implementation of the provisions of the trilateral statement of November 9, 2020.”
Russia brokered a truce agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan last November, putting an end to six weeks of hostilities in and around Nagorno-Karabakh in which more than 6,000 people were killed.
Under the terms of the document called a trilateral statement, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.
The agreement also led to the deployment of around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers along frontline areas and a land corridor connecting the disputed territory with Armenia.