Armenia to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey

Armenia is ready to establish diplomatic relations with Turkey and to open the borders, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said.

While Turkey recognized Armenia in the early 1990s, the two countries never established diplomatic relations. In 1993, following the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Baku-supporting Turkey unilaterally closed its borders with Armenia.

In an interview with the Turkish Anadolu news agency, which was published on Tuesday, Mirzoyan reiterated that his country’s political will was “to achieve full normalization of relations with Turkey and open the era of peaceful and sustainable development in the region.” He confirmed that the negotiations between the two countries were ongoing and “positive.”

“Armenia is ready to establish diplomatic relations and to the opening of the borders with Turkey. I was glad to hear from my Turkish counterpart [Mevlut Cavusoglu] that there is a political will on their side to lead the process to that end as well,” the foreign minister said.

He added that “amid a rapidly developing situation in the world” the sides “should not hesitate to take concrete steps.”

Among such “concrete steps,” he named the resumption earlier this year of direct flights between Armenia’s capital, Yerevan, and Turkey’s biggest city, Istanbul.

“Opening of the borders will have its positive impact on the connectivity, trade and economic relations between the two countries, people to people contacts and the overall stability in the region,” Mirzoyan underlined.

Admitting that, in both countries, there are “certain groups” which “are skeptical about the normalization process, the foreign minister said that in general the Armenians support it.

Cavusoglu had earlier characterized his March 12 meeting with Mirzoyan as “very productive and constructive.” “We are making efforts for stability and peace,” the Turkish foreign minister told the reporters.