Azerbaijan and Russia are discussing additional legal mechanisms on the mandate of the Russian peacekeepers deployed in Nagorno-Karabakh, an aide to the President of Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiyev, has said.

“As for additional agreements and legal mechanisms on the mandate of the peacekeepers, there have been preliminary contacts between the parties in this regard, and certain discussions are still ongoing,” Hajiyev said in an interview with the BBC.

He stressed that the activity of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Karabakh is based on the trilateral statement of November 9, signed by the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia.

Hajiyev said the trilateral statement set a "political and, to a certain extent, legal framework" for the peacekeeping forces.

Around 2000 Russian peacekeepers were sent to the region when Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Russian and Azerbaijani Presidents Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev on November 9 signed a statement to end the war in Karabakh after almost 45 days. Under the deal, the Armenian side returned all the seven regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, having lost a part of Karabakh itself in hostilities.