The special envoys appointed by Ankara and Yerevan to oversee the process of normalization between Armenia and Turkey met for a second time on Thursday in Vienna.
Similar to their previous meeting last month in Moscow, the foreign ministries of the both countries issued identical announcements, with not much detail about the specifics of their talks.
“Special Representatives for the normalization process between Armenia and Turkey, respectively, the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ruben Rubinyan and Ambassador Serdar Kılıç held a meeting today (February 24) in Vienna,” said the announcement.
“The Special Representatives confirmed that the ultimate goal of the negotiations is to achieve full normalization between Armenia and Turkey, as agreed during their first meeting in Moscow.
They exchanged views on possible concrete steps that can be mutually undertaken to that end and reiterated their agreement to continue the process without preconditions,” the announcement added.
Yerevan has signaled that at the end of the process it wants to open the its borders with Turkey and establish diplomatic relations.
Both Kilic and Rubinyan deemed their first meeting on January 14 as “positive and constructive.”
The Armenian government, which has yet to call for accountability from Turkey for its blatant and brazen involvement in the 2020 war against Artsakh, says that the normalization of relations with Ankara is part its larger plan of establishing peace in the region.
The process, which is supported by Russia, Europe and the United States, has been criticized by Armenia’s opposition forces, which believe that the Pashinyan government is kowtowing to Turkey and Azerbaijan, Armenia’s traditional enemies.
The Armenian National Committee of America-Western Region issued its position https://asbarez.com/anca-wr-strongly-objects-to-yerevan-ankara-normalization-while-turkeys-threat-to-armenias-sovereignty-persists/ on the matter earlier this month, saying it strongly objected to the process while Turkey’s threat to Armenia’s sovereignty still persisted.
Ahead of Thursday’s meeting, Kilic visited the Armenian Patriarchate of Istanbul and met with Patriarch Sahak II, who expressed hope that the normalization process would lead to more development and peace in the region.
On Wednesday, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said that Ankara is ready to improve ties if Yerevan is “determined to continue the process that has started with the special representatives.”