(Reuters) – A top Russian security official, Nikolai Patrushev, met Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Baku, Russian news agencies reported on Tuesday.
Patrushev, the secretary of Russia’s Security Council and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, is a former director of the Federal Security Service (FSB) and is seen as a main advocate of hardline, hawkish policies within the Kremlin.
“A wide range of issues of Russian-Azerbaijani co-operation in various spheres was discussed. Emphasis was placed on topics related to ensuring and strengthening regional and international security and stability,” Russian news agencies quoted the Security Council’s press service as saying.
Azerbaijan last month staged a lightning offensive to regain control over Nagorno-Karabakh – a mountainous region run for three decades by ethnic Armenians. The territory was the main focus of two wars between Azerbaijan and neighbouring Armenia, Russia’s long-time ally in the region, now falling out of Moscow’s zone of influence.
Most of the 120,000 ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh left for Armenia after the Azerbaijani offensive.
(Reporting by Maxim Rodionov, Editing by Ron Popeski and Grant McCool)