Armenian President Serzh Sarksyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have reportedly come to an agreement on some basic principles regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute that has been going on for almost 20 years.
While meeting with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev at a ski resort near Sochi on Monday, the two leaders reached an understanding on the preamble to a new and improved version of the 2007 Madrid document, which outlined a step-by-step resolution to the conflict.
“There is a general understanding on the preamble of the document,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said following the meeting, according to Russian media outlets.
Since the conclusion of the Nagorno-Karabakh War in 1994, Azerbaijan and Armenia have been involved in peace talks under the guidance of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group which is headed by a Co-Chairmanship of Russia, the U.S., and France.
While the territory is internationally recognized as within Azerbaijan’s jurisdiction, the region has been independently administered by the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since 1991.