The Minsk Group of mediators will begin meeting separately with the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia. Today, Oct. 8, Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Ceyhun Bayramov will be in Geneva on what is described as a “working visit” to meet with representatives of the Minsk Group. It has not been revealed with whom from the Minsk Group, which is co-chaired by the U.S., Russia and France, he will be meeting. On Oct. 12 Armenia’s Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan will visit Moscow for what is described as an “official visit,” that has been planned for some time, said Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Anna Naghdalyan in a Facebook post. No meeting that includes both foreign ministers in the same room or country is planned.
However, TASS reported that the Kremlin press service made the following statement on Oct. 8:
“After a series of phone conversations with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the president of the Russian Federation is making a call to cease the current hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone for humanitarian reasons, with the aim to carry out a swap of dead bodies and prisoners,” TASS quoted the Kremlin press service. “In order to hold consultations on those issues, mediated by the Russian foreign minister, the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia are invited to Moscow on Oct. 9,” it stated.
