The presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan, on Sunday signed a joint declaration on the peaceful settlement of the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh.
The parties pledge to improve the situation in the South Caucasus and affirm the importance of OSCE mediation, said the declaration, which was read at a signing ceremony outside Moscow by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
The leaders agreed that "the peaceful settlement should be accompanied by legally binding international guarantees of all aspects and stages," the document reads.
Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev agreed to continue their work on the political settlement to the conflict and instructed their foreign ministers to speed up the negotiation process.
Nagorny Karabakh, a Azerbaijani region with a large Armenian population, declared independence from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s and has been a source of conflict ever since.