ANKARA (Combined Sources)–Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to a three-way meeting to continue discussion on the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Turkey’s foreign minister Ali Babacan said Wednesday.
Armenia’s foreign ministry, in response to an inquiry on the Babacan announcement only said that Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian was scheduled to visit Istanbul for the upcoming Black Sea Economic Cooperation summit. Armenia assumed the rotating presidency of the economic body last month.
"There is consensus to repeat the trilateral meeting … but the schedule for that should be determined carefully so that concrete results can be taken," Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said.
Babacan said he planned to visit Azerbaijan, adding that Armenia’s Foreign Minister would visit Turkey as part of his "busy diplomatic schedule."
"We hope to see positive developmen’s in a plausible time-frame and to solve these decades-old problems," said Babacan.
"We expect Russia to make important contributions for the normalization of Azeri-Armenian relations," he added.
President Abdullah Gul became the first Turkish leader to visit Armenia in September for a soccer match between Turkey and Armenia, and Babacan said the two could meet again soon.
"There is no need to wait for another football game for a meeting between [Armenian President Serzh] Sarkisian and Gul. I expect that such a meeting could take place within months."