Ankara’s lack of political will is obstructing the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey, Ruben Rubinyan, Armenia’s special envoy tasked with overseeing that process said on Saturday.
Since the renewed talks between Yerevan and Ankara, Turkish government officials, including its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have placed preconditions on the normalization process, mainly calling on Armenia to sign a peace deal with Azerbaijan that is favorable to Baku, including the inclusion of the so-called “Zangezur Corridor.”
Rubinyan and his Turkish counterpart, Serdar Kilic, decided two years ago that the border between Armenia and Turkey would open to third party citizens, as well as those holding diplomatic passports. That process has stalled, because Ankara has continued to create obstacles, even announcing that the Armenian Diaspora is obstructing the normalization process.
“There is a misperception in Turkey that the Armenian Diaspora’s stance has been or remains an obstruction on the path of the Armenia-Turkey normalization,” Rubinyan said Saturday during a conference in Yerevan.
“On numerous occasions it has been proven that that it is not the case. It wasn’t that way in the early 2010s, when the so-called football diplomacy was underway, when the protocols were signed. At that time the Armenian government was ready to immediately normalize relations with Turkey without preconditions,” Rubinyan said.
Rubinyan said the only obstruction in the Armenia-Turkey normalization is the lack of political will in Turkey itself.
He said it is highly important for the normalization process to remain a process between the two countries alone and reiterated that, from its side, Armenia is ready to immediately open the border.
The government of Armenia renovated the border area in Maraga and hosted European and other diplomats at the site to show progress on Yerevan’s part in the process.
President Vahagn Khachaturyan, who is visiting Turkmenistan, told Armenpress that he discussed the normalization process with Turkey’s Parliament Speaker on the margins of the conference he is attending in Ashgabad.
Khachatryan said that the two discussed “living peacefully, opening the borders and establishing diplomatic relations,” saying the normalization of relations can become a reality in the “foreseeable future.”
“There is an objective to unblock the connections, meaning, to give everyone the opportunity to make use of the connections which exist today and the potential which Armenia has, meaning, to make the region accessible not only for Armenia and Azerbaijan, but for all countries and especially for regional countries,” the President said.
