Turkey has proposed new requirements for repairing relations with Armenia, according to Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, who was responding to the topic of whether Armenia is ready to normalise relations with Turkey in an interview with the French daily Le Figaro.
“We have always stated that we are ready to normalise our relations without preconditions, despite the huge support provided by Turkey to Azerbaijan during the war against Nagorno-Karabakh, both politically and through the supply of weapons, as well as the deployment of thousands of foreign mercenaries.
We have received positive signals from Turkey to reopen the dialogue, but it remains complicated. Ankara puts forward new conditions. Among them is the "corridor" connecting Azerbaijan and Nakhichevan. It cannot be a subject of discussion at all. Countries should allow transit while maintaining their sovereignty over their territory. All communication channels in the region should be reopened,” Mirzoyan said.
Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during the first Karabakh war in a show of solidarity with its long-time ally Azerbaijan. Almost three decades later, Turkey is considering reopening that border in the aftermath of Azerbaijan's victory in the second Karabakh war in 2020.
During Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Azerbaijan in December 2020, he said, “If positive steps are taken in this regard, we will open our closed doors.” A month later, an unnamed senior Erdoğan advisor told Turkish journalist Asli Aydintasbas that Ankara was ready to “normalie relations with Armenia.”
In February 2021, Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu condemned the possible coup attempt against Armenia's Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, who said the General Staff issued a statement calling for his resignation.
On April 24, 2021, during his meeting with Armenian Patriarch Sahak Maşalyan, Erdogan said, “It is time for us to lay bare that we as Turks and Armenians have reached the maturity of overcoming all obstacles together.”
“Everybody would win” if there were a broad regional settlement, Turkey's former Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told The Economist in May 2021.
