YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Special envoys named by Armenia and Turkey will likely hold their first meeting in Moscow, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on Monday.
The envoys were appointed earlier this month after the governments of the two neighboring states said they will try to normalize bilateral relations.
Ankara will be represented in the upcoming talks by Serdar Kilic, an experienced diplomat who served as Turkey’s ambassador to the United States from 2014-2021. Kilic’s 31-year-old Armenian counterpart, Ruben Rubinian, is a deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament.
“It seems to us that the first meeting of the negotiators will take place in Moscow,” Cavusoglu told a news conference in Ankara. “The Armenian side has expressed such a desire.”
“We want the two sides to have direct contacts before the meeting. The envoys were appointed for a direct dialogue,” he said, adding that they should work out a “roadmap” to a Turkish-Armenian rapprochement.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Vahan Hunanyan, said in this regard that the two sides are discussing the possibility of holding the first round of Turkish-Armenian talks in Moscow. No date has been set for the talks yet, Hunanyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Russia as well as the United States have welcomed the announcement of Turkish-Armenian normalization talks. Yerevan asked Moscow last month to assist in that dialogue.
Ankara has for decades refused to establish diplomatic relations with Yerevan and kept the Turkish-Armenian border closed out of solidarity with Azerbaijan. It provided decisive military support to Baku during last year’s Armenian-Azerbaijani war over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In recent months Turkish leaders have made statements making the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations conditional on Armenia agreeing to open a land corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave. They have also cited Baku’s demands for a formal Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
Cavusoglu reiterated on Monday that Ankara will continue to coordinate its Armenian policy with Baku.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan complained last month that the Turks are setting “new preconditions” for establishing diplomatic relations and opening the border with Armenia. His spokesman insisted afterwards that Yerevan continues to stand for “normalizing relations with Turkey without preconditions.”
Turkey does nothing without preconditions or having a direct gain from conflict settlements.
Armenian leaders should remain vigilant in their negotiations specially when it comes to a corridor and Artsakh.
Armenia is run by a traitor who couldn’t cut it as a journalist let alone head of state. And the peasants in Armenia reelected this loser for a 2nd time. Doesn’t give one much confidence.
We have a defeatist loser running the country and he is making dangerous moves that if true will set the Armenian nation back a century. I’m really surprised this incompetent sorry excuse for a leader is still in office. People who elected him into this critical position are detached from reality altogether. They are a bunch of politically-ignorant self-serving gullible sheep fooled by the traitor they chose. They did so not once but twice! Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me, as they say but it appears that this sheep that elected this loser twice has no shame whatsoever. They will soon learn they have made the biggest mistakes of their lives. It is just a matter of time unless he is replaced by a TRUE Armenian patriot who will not only stop all this nonsense but reverse it.
Why would anyone in his right mind, assuming he is not a traitor to the nation, allow a land passage be constructed to connect one enemy-occupied Armenian territory (Nakhijevan) to another (artificial Azerbaijan republic) is beyond any rational reasoning. These are occupied Armenian territories from where the entire indigenous Armenian populations were uprooted, their properties confiscated and their historic and religious sites desecrated and destroyed by this racist and fascist despicable enemy. This is like self-mutilation and suicide. Besides, Soviet era passages already exist for such purpose which should never be opened in the first place. This is a Turkish scheme, and it’s been so for a century, to link terrorist Turkey to Central Asia via criminal artificial Azerbaijan to further isolate Armenia. This is part of an unfulfilled racist pan-Turkic and fascist pan-Turanic dream of the filthy and genocidal terrorist Turkish government. The destruction of the Armenian statehood is in the Turkish constitution since the days of that pseudo-Turkish terrorist mutt Ataturk. The Armenian nation needs to wake up and resist this nightmare!
The only hope and solution: legally and publicly prosecute pashinogly the POOP/traitor and his qp dogs/traitors and execute them. Do it legally and according to a field tribunal rules. Then and only then a healing will be possible. No merci to traitors! Spare the poghos POOP lovers. Most of these retards have been brutally cheated by the traitor.
Under these circumstances, I don’t think that former presidents would have done better, we should remember that those presidents were the ones who stole the countries monies, and those presidents were the ones who didn’t arm the army with adequate weapons.