Russian President Vladimir Putin has invited Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan to Russia to discuss regional matters in the wake of recent tensions between Yerevan and Baku.
According to Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, who confirmed the news on Monday.
“Russian President [Vladimir] Putin invited the President of Azerbaijan [Ilham] Aliyev and Prime Minister of Armenia [Nikol] Pashinyan to Russia for the next trilateral summit, where it is planned to discuss a whole range of trilateral and bilateral issues,” Zakharova said in a statement.
Earlier this month, Putin proposed to hold a trilateral summit “anywhere and at any time: in Sochi, in St. Petersburg, in Moscow.” On Monday, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Interfax that preparations for the summit were ongoing, with its date and location to be revealed in due course.
According to the Vedomosti newspaper, citing its own diplomatic source, the meeting might take place at the end of October, most likely in Sochi on Russia's Black Sea coast.
The last trilateral summit between Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan took place in November last year, also in Sochi.
Pashinyan and Aliyev held two meetings earlier this month in Prague with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and French leader Emmanuel Macron respectively.
