Vladimir Putin, Russian President and French counterpart Emmanuel Macron discussed the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh during a phone call, their offices said in statements on Tuesday.
Armenia and Azerbaijan said Tuesday their foreign ministers would meet U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo in Washington on Friday in efforts to end the heaviest fighting in and around the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh since the 1990s.
The two leaders, who co-chair with the United States the so-called Minsk group in charge of mediating between Armenia and Azerbaijan, said they agreed the two South Caucasian countries should relaunch “substantial negotiations”, the Elysee said.
Macron also asked Putin to reinforce Franco-Russian cooperation in the fight against terrorism and clandestine immigration, the French statement said.
A Moscow-born, 18-year-old man of Chechen origin beheaded a French teacher on Friday for showing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad in class. The attack outside his school in a Paris suburb last week shocked many in France and beyond.