Yerevan /Mediamax/. Russian President Vladimir Putin said today that Russia has always supported Armenia in ensuring security.

“If to look at the historical component, traditionally, Russia has always paid attention to stability in this direction and supported our Armenian friends in ensuring the security of the Armenian people – from ancient times,” Putin said, speaking at the extraordinary session of the CSTO Collective Security Council held via teleconference.

“As for the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement, today as well, we are doing everything possible to achieve a complex and comprehensive normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan. We have a huge number of ties with both Yerevan and Baku, and it is simply impossible not to consider it. Of course, we are all in a rather difficult situation. But we cannot stay away from problems and contradictions between states close to Russia and are invariably ready to contribute to their peaceful resolution. And we are interested in Transcaucasia being a calm and steadily developing region.

Undoubtedly, the only possible and realistic way to peace can be the strict observance of all the provisions of the well-known joint statements of the leaders of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan by the parties.

Through the consistent implementation of these agreements we can achieve a sustainable normalization of Armenia’s relations with Azerbaijan. We have talked with the Prime Minister of Armenia about this many times, and I understand that our colleague fully agrees with this. The question is how to find these solutions, it is not easy, but it is possible to find them only on that way. In the future, this will also make it possible to sign a peace treaty,” Putin said.