Azerbaijan close to peace agreement with Armenia, officials say

Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev has met Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan for bilateral talks in St Petersburg

Azerbaijani officials have said the country could be closing in on a peace agreement with Armenia to end their decades-long conflict following its lightning offensive in September to take control of its Nagorno-Karabakh region.

In face of a decisive military advance, more than 100,000 people fled the mountainous south Caucasus enclave, which, following a war in the 1990s, had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces, backed by Armenia.