Armenian, Azerbaijani leaders in Russia for talks

The peace deal was celebrated in Azerbaijan as a major triumph, but sparked outrage and mass protests in Armenia, where thousands repeatedly took to the streets demanding Pashinyans resignation.The Armenian prime minister has defended the deal as a painful but necessary move that prevented Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday hosted his counterparts from Armenia and Azerbaijan, their first meeting since a Russia-brokered truce ended six weeks of fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh.

As he sat down for talks in the Kremlin with Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Putin said that the peace agreement has been successfully implemented, laying the foundation for a fair settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He noted that senior officials from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia will now discuss further moves to restore traffic links in the region after the decades-long conflict.

The November 10 peace deal ended 44 days of hostilities in which the Azerbaijani army routed Armenian forces and reclaimed control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

That war left Nagorno-Karabakh itself and substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.

Hostilities flared up in late September and the Azerbaijani military pushed deep into Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas in six weeks of fighting involving heavy artillery and drones that left more than 6,000 people dead on both sides. Under the peace deal, Russia has deployed about 2,000 peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh for five years. The peace deal was celebrated in Azerbaijan as a major triumph, but sparked outrage and mass protests in Armenia, where thousands repeatedly took to the streets demanding Pashinyan's resignation.

The Armenian prime minister has defended the deal as a painful but necessary move that prevented Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)