Russia hosts Armenia-Azerbaijan talks on Nagorno-Karabakh

Armenia’s Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and his Azeri counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov, have met in Russia’s capital, Moscow, for the first time since the eruption of the deadliest fighting between Armenian and Azeri troops in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in more than two decades.

Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but has an Armenian population. The latest fighting over the region began on September 27 and has claimed over 400 lives. Each side blames the other for instigating the fighting.

The talks in Moscow, chaired by Russia’s top diplomat Sergei Lavrov, came a day after Russia, France, and the United States initiated a peace drive at a meeting in Geneva, details of which have not been publicized.

For years, the two neighbors have been locked in a conflict over Azerbaijan’s breakaway, mainly ethnic Armenian region of Nagorno-Karabakh. A ceasefire agreed in 1994 failed to end the conflict.