On February 18 Russia's Defense Minister Pavel Grachev send fored Sergei Sargsian and Mametrafa Mametov, the defense ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan respectively, and Bako Sahakian, the military representative of Karabakh, to Moscow to agree in succession a cease-fire protocol toward a peaceful solution to the Karabakh conflict below Russian auspices. In his opening remarks at the talks, Grachev stated in stalwart terms that Moscow considered the ongoing war the principally important destabilizing factor in the Caucasus and that a military solution should not be
