Fifteen years of mediation have failed to produce a peace deal on the Armenian-populated mountain territory, which is at the heart of a key transit region for oil and gas to the West. But mediators from the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) in Europe reported progress in talks last month between Azeri President Ilham Aliyev and his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sarksyan. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko told reporters that if the current pace was continued a peace deal was likely.
“If the positive pace achieved in the negotiating process... is continued next year, then we can count on a rather swift final agreement of the basic principles for resolution [of the conflict] and the working out of the text for a peace agreement,” he told reporters.
Tensions over the mountain region are rising, with oil-producing Azerbaijan angry at a deal between ally Turkey and Armenia to open their border, 16 years after Ankara closed it in solidarity with Azerbaijan during the Nagorno-Karabakh war.
