Armenian PM in Turkiye for the “historic” visit aimed at normalizing links | New policies

The visit of Nikol Pashinyan marks the second attempt to reconcile Ankara and Yerevan.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is on a rare visit to Istanbul to meet with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in what Erevan described as a “historic” stage towards regional peace.

The visit is part of the efforts of the two countries to normalize the tense links on historical disputes and the Ankara alliance with Azerbaijan, which was in a long -standing conflict with Armenia.

“This is a historic visit, because it will be the first time that a chief of the Republic of Armenia visits Turkiye at this level. All regional questions will be discussed,” the president of the Armenian Parliament, Alen Simonyan said on Friday. “The risks of war (with Azerbaijan) are currently minimal, and we must work to neutralize them. Pashinyan’s visit to Turkiye is a step in this direction. ”

Pashinyan’s visit intervenes one day after the president of Azerbaijanais, Ilham Aliyev, had talks in Turkiye with Erdogan, during which he congratulated the Turkish-Azerbaijani alliance as “an important factor, not only regionally but also in the world”, and Erdogan reiterated his support for “the establishment of azerbaijan and Armenia ”.

Bakou and erevan agree on the text of a peace agreement In March, but Bakou has since described a multitude of requests, including modifications to the constitution of Armenia, which she wants to meet before signing the document.

Pashinyan is expected to meet Erdogan at the Istanbul Dolmabahce Palace at 3:00 p.m. GMT, Erdogan’s office said.

An official of the Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs told the AFP news agency that the couple would discuss efforts to sign a full peace treaty.

The regional benefits of the Israeli-Iranian conflict, which started last Friday when Israel has launched several waves of air strikes The targeting of nuclear installations and Iran’s military sites will also be discussed.

Armenia and Turkiye have never established official diplomatic links, and their common border has been closed since 1993.

Attempts at standardization

Relations between the two nations were historically tense during the massacres of the Armenians of the era of the First World War in the Ottoman Empire – Historians of atrocities and Yerevan say that genocide. Turkiye rejects the label, saying that, even if many people died at that time, the number of deaths was swollen and deaths result from civil disorders.

Ankara also supported her close ally, Azerbaijan of Turkish language, in the long-standing conflict of Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia. This region, which had a mainly ethnic Armenian population at the time, broke away from Azerbaijan with the support of Armenia in the late 1980s. In 2020, Turkiye supported Azerbaijan in his second war with Armenia, which ended after six weeks with a Russian peace agreement which saw Azerbaijan take control of the region.

Pashinyan actively sought to normalize relations with Bakou and Ankara.

Ankara and Erevan appointed special envoys at the end of 2021 to direct a standardization process and resumed commercial flights in 2022 after a two -year break.

Earlier this year, Pashinyan announced that Armenia would stop his campaign for the international recognition of the mass massacres of Armenians in 1915 as a genocide – a major concession in Turkiye who sparked many criticism at home.

Pashinyan’s first visit to Turkiye was to attend the inauguration of Erdogan in 2023.

This is the second attempted reconciliation of Ankara and Erevan. Turkiye and Armenia concluded an agreement in 2009 to establish formal relations and open their common border, but the agreement has never been ratified due to strong opposition from Azerbaijan.