Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow is contributing with Armenia and Azerbaijan to creating conditions for the formulation of a peace treaty between the two countries, after their decision to start preparing for peace negotiations aimed at resolving the three-decade-old conflict in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Lavrov said that he and his Armenian counterpart discussed - in Moscow - the issue of demilitarization of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, and the measures to be implemented within the framework of the Collective Security Organization.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have decided to start preparations for peace negotiations between the two countries, located in the Caucasus, which fought a war in 2020 to control the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, the Armenian Foreign Ministry announced in a statement Thursday.

The statement said that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev instructed their foreign ministers to "start preparations for peace negotiations between the two countries", during a meeting held on Wednesday in Brussels with the mediation of the European Union.

He added that "an agreement was reached during the meeting (...) to form a bilateral committee on border demarcation issues."

The statement indicated that this committee will be tasked with ensuring security and stability along the borders.

And the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, announced - in a statement issued last Wednesday evening - that Aliyev and Pashinyan agreed to start a concrete process and form a joint working group to prepare a possible peace agreement between their countries.

And Michel described the meeting - which took place between Aliyev and Pashinyan in Brussels and lasted more than 5 hours - as wonderful and very fruitful.

The European official described the talks between the two countries' leaders in Brussels as an important step in the right direction, and said that this confirms progress towards reaching a permanent agreement that guarantees peace, security and stability as soon as possible.

The Brussels meeting follows a new rise in the level of tension in Nagorno-Karabakh, where Russian peacekeeping forces have been deployed since November 2020.

In late September 2020, the Azerbaijani army launched an operation to restore its lands in the Karabakh region, and after fierce battles that lasted 44 days and left about 6,500 dead, Azerbaijan and Armenia reached on November 10, 2020, a ceasefire agreement, which stipulated the restoration of Baku control over the occupied provinces.