Armenia and Turkey are expected to designate special envoys who will be tasked to discuss steps for normalization of relations between the two countries.
Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu first announced this new development Monday during a speech at parliament, with Armenia’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan confirming it on Tuesday.
The Turkish TRT Television reported that Cavusoglu said that Ankara will coordinate all steps with Azerbaijan. He also said that charter flights to and from Istanbul and Yerevan will resume, reported Reuters.
Calling it a “positive” step, Hunanyan said, “we confirm that the Armenian side will also appoint a special envoy for dialogue.”
“Just like before, Armenia is now also ready for the process aimed at normalization of relations with Turkey without preconditions, which is set forth in the government program,” added Hunanyan.
Reportedly, Ankara’s announcement is in line with a request by President Joe Biden, who urged his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdogan to open his country’s border with Armenia during a meeting in October in Rome, Bloomberg reported citing a Turkish official.
“Turkey hopes that taking steps to normalize ties with Armenia will help Ankara improve its strained relations with Washington over its purchase of Russia air defenses. After the meeting between Biden and Erdogan, the two countries set up a mechanism to address issues that have poisoned relations between the two NATO allies that share broader security and economic interests,” Bloomberg reported.
The issue of normalizing relations with Turkey, which overtly aided Azerbaijan in its aggressive attack of Artsakh last year, resurfaced this summer when Turkish and Armenia leaders said each was making positive overtures toward normalization talks.
However, from the start Erdogan immediately called for Armenia to recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, with Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan. More recently, Ankara has said normalization talks would be contingent on Armenia’s agreement to the so-called “Zangezur Corridor,” a plan being pushed by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev to establish a direct link between Azerbaijan-proper and Nakhichevan and Turkey through Armenia.
Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan last month in an interview with Le Monde, accused Ankara of creating obstacles for those talks.
By starting dialogue with Turkey, Armenia is not abandoning its key state interests, and the establishment of relations cannot be accompanied by any preconditions, the head of Armenia’s parliamentary committee on foreign relations Eduard Aghajanyan told reporters on Tuesday.
“In the context of relations with Turkey, Armenia’s stance has always been that we are ready to start the relations without any preconditions both from the Armenian side and the opposite,” he said.
Aghajanyan gave assurances that the Armenian side is not abandoning anything, and this process is about starting diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey.
“This does not in any manner mean that Armenia is abandoning its key state interests. On the contrary, we are convinced that establishing diplomatic relations with Turkey stems from Armenian state interests for various reasons,” Aghajanyan, a member of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party said Tuesday, adding that both Armenia and Turkey will benefit from this.
“Armenia has neighbors whom it cannot avoid geographically, and our neighbors cannot avoid our presence in this region. Therefore, there simply is no alternative to establishing good relations with neighboring states. Indeed, this process isn’t easy given the regional processes of the last 30 years, but we are willing to take this path. Everything that will be done for this process will stem from Armenia’s interests,” Aghajanyan said.
He noted that over the last 30 years, Turkey was the one that has always pulled the plug on the process by bringing forward preconditions associated with the Artsakh conflict.
Perhaps we should give them four-fifths of the land in Armenia and call it even.