YEREVAN, November 22. /ARKA/. Russia will welcome any agreement that will help resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said in comments on an Azerbaijani proposal to exchange prisoners between Armenia and Azerbaijan.



The idea of exchanging prisoners under the “all for all” scheme was made by official Baku, suggesting that Armenian citizens Arsen Baghdasaryan, Karen Ghazaryan and Zaven Karapetyan be exchanged for Azeri citizens Dilham Askerov and Shahbaz Quliyev. The latter were convicted by a court in Nagorno-Karabakh for murder, espionage, illegal border crossing, and illegal weapons possession and sentenced

to life and 22 years in prison, respectively, in a 2014 trial.



Armenia refused the proposal, saying there are no Azerbaijani prisoners on the Armenian side. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan described the proposal as ‘inappropriate.’



"We welcome any agreement that is in line with the main task of resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. But the agreements imply accord and work for achieving it. Therefore, the initiative is excellent, but it needs to be worked out in order for it to turn into an agreement," Zakharova said.



The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict erupted into armed clashes after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s as the predominantly Armenian-populated enclave of Azerbaijan sought to secede from Azerbaijan and declared its independence backed by a successful referendum.



On May 12, 1994, the Bishkek cease-fire agreement put an end to the military operations. A truce was brokered by Russia in 1994, although no permanent peace agreement has been signed. Since then, Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions have been under the control of Armenian forces of Karabakh.



Nagorno-Karabakh is the longest-running post-Soviet era conflict and has continued to simmer despite the relative peace of the past two decades, with snipers causing tens of deaths a year. On April 2, 2016, Azerbaijan launched military assaults along the entire perimeter of its contact line with Nagorno-Karabakh. Four days later a cease-fire was reached. -0-





16:00 22.11.2018