President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey said Azerbaijan’s attack on Artsakh in 2020, and the 44-Day War that ensued claiming thousands of Armenian lives, has created an opportunity for peace in the region.
Erdogan, in an address on Monday, following his cabinet meeting, said his government is closely following the Armenia and Azerbaijan peace process.
“Our wish is to receive good news as soon as possible without giving an opportunity to the centers trying to sabotage the process,” Erdogan said, according to the Anadolu news agency. He did not specify which centers or what kind of sabotage he meant.
Erodgan and other high-ranking Turkish government officials have said a peace deal between Armenia and Azerbaijan that is favorable to Baku, namely the creation of a so-called “corridor” linking Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan, would be a precondition to normalizing relations with Yerevan—a process that so far has stalled.
Erdogan brought up the meeting on October 18 at a cooperation platform known as the “3+3” in Istanbul attended by the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran and Russia.
This scheme, heavily backed by Moscow and Ankara, envisions that the aforementioned countries, as well as Georgia, will create an economic and security platform in the region.
Thus far, Georgia has refused to participate.
Erdogan said the “3+3” platform is now “meeting an important need.”
“We want to institutionalize this mechanism in the upcoming period. Following the 44-day war [in Karabakh], a unique opportunity was created for permanent peace in the South Caucasus… Winds of peace are now blowing in this region, which was once associated with pain, occupation and conflict,” Erdogan said.
It was following the Istanbul meeting that Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov proposed that the peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan be conducted within the so-called “3+3” platform.
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan rejected this proposal last week, saying that Yerevan and Baku have been in talks for an eventual peace deal and such platforms were not created to interfere in these talks.
Yerevan and Baku have stated that they have so far reached agreement on about 80 percent of their draft peace treaty. In recent weeks, official Yerevan has repeatedly suggested signing the deal with what has already been agreed upon and working on the remaining issues later, but Baku has opposed this initiative. Armenia has also offered a mechanism for mutual control of weapons and suggested signing a non-aggression pact, but Azerbaijan has not responded to these proposals.
