Burç Eruygur
26 October 2023•Update: 26 October 2023
ISTANBUL
The Kremlin said Thursday that Russia is expecting to receive information on comments made by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal (WSJ).
“In this case, we are not inclined to perceive The Wall Street Journal as a primary source, so we still need to understand exactly what Mr. Pashinyan was talking about,” spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow.
Those comments came after Pashinyan told the WSJ that clashes between Azerbaijani and Armenian forces since the 2020 Karabakh War have led Yerevan to decide it needed to “diversify relations in the security sector.”
Peskov said Moscow expected to receive “all the information on this matter” in talks with Armenian officials, and that Russia continued to conduct efforts to “help Baku and Yerevan finally reach the conclusion of a peace treaty.”
“It is not good for Russia and Armenia to communicate through newspapers, especially the Wall Street Journal. Therefore, we continue the conversation, dialogue with our Armenian friends, and we will continue to do so, we have a very broad agenda,” he said.
Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh -- a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.
Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement and also opened the door to normalization.
In September, the Azerbaijani army initiated an anti-terrorism operation in Karabakh to establish constitutional order in the region, after which illegal separatist forces in the region surrendered.
Azerbaijan, having now established full sovereignty in the region, has reiterated its call to the Armenian population in Karabakh to become part of Azerbaijani society.
