Foreign ministers from Iran, Turkey and Russia will meet their counterparts from Azerbaijan and Armenia in Tehran on Monday and discuss progress towards a peace agreement between the two South Caucasus neighbours, Iranian and Russian state media said.
The first meeting of foreign ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan after the September lightning offensive by Azeri forces in Nagorno-Karabakh will also take place amid rising tensions in the Middle East.
IRNA news agency quoted the foreign ministry as saying the countries wanted to talk about regional issues "without the interference of non-regional and Western countries".
That was an implicit reference to the United States and the European Union, whose involvement in the search for a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan has particularly annoyed Moscow.
Russia's Interfax news agency said Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would travel to Tehran for the meeting.
Since launching its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow has sought to firm up military and diplomatic ties with countries outside the traditional West. Lavrov has met his Iranian counterpart several times since.
Russia regards itself as the security guarantor between Azerbaijan and Armenia, but the demands and distractions of its war in Ukraine have led to a weakening of its influence.
