Putin to host leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan for talks

By DASHA LITVINOVA
Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — Russian President Vladimir Putin is hosting the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan for talks. The three are expected to discuss ways to resolve the tensions over the separatist region of Nagorno-Karabakh. He will also have separate bilateral meetings in Sochi with each one. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a decades-old dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia since a separatist war there ended in 1994. The Azerbaijani military routed the Armenian forces in 44 days of fighting in the fall of 2020, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal.