Putin, Merkel Vow to Cooperate on Karabakh within Minsk Group

Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel affirmed during a phone call Monday that their two countries are ready to continue cooperation within the framework of the Minsk Group on the disputed Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

According to a Kremlin statement, Putin stressed during the conversation the necessity of involving international institutions in the work of the Russian Humanitarian Response Center in Karabakh, in order to meet the urgent needs of the population affected by the recent hostilities in the region.

The two leaders also touched on the crisis in southeastern Ukraine, as Russia supports separatists from the Ukrainian government in the Donbas region.

They expressed concern about the lack of progress in implementing the "Minsk-2" agreement of 2015 and the decisions of the "Normandy Quartet" that were adopted a year ago.

Putin and Merkel stressed that there is no alternative to the "Minsk" agreement as a basis for the settlement, and the two parties' readiness to continue joint work within the "Normandy formula."

With regard to efforts to address the outbreak of the Coronavirus pandemic, it was agreed to continue contacts between the ministries of health in the two countries, including corona vaccines.

In his speech to the Council of Foreign Ministers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe last Thursday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called on the Ukrainian government to stop obstructing the implementation of the Minsk settlement agreements in the Donbas region, southeast of Ukraine.

"We hope that Ukraine will finally stop obstructing the implementation of the Minsk agreements, which are the indispensable basis for a settlement between Ukrainians," Lavrov said.

Lavrov stressed that he would not evade the implementation of the decisions of the Normandy Quartet summit in Paris for direct dialogue between Kiev, Donetsk, and Lugansk.

Earlier, the head of the Ukrainian delegation to the contact group on Donbas, Leonid Kravchuk, said that his country had proposed a "Donbas action plan" with the participation of all members of the group.