Armenia’s Deputy Prime Minister Suren Papikyan said Thursday that a meeting between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey is not anticipated, reported RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
He made the announcement during a Facebook Live interview.
Erdogan, on Sunday, said that Pashinyan had asked his Georgian counterpart Irakli Gharibashvili to mediate a meeting with him. The Turkish leader said that Armenia must acknowledge Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity as a precondition for a meeting. This supposes Armenia’s recognition of Artsakh under Azerbaijani rule.
Papikyan on Thursday discussed with Sergei Kopyrkin, Russia’s ambassador in Yerevan, the continuing disruptions in Armenia’s trade with Iran caused by an Azerbaijani checkpoint set up on the main highway connecting the two neighboring countries.
Azerbaijani forces reportedly began escorting Armenian cars driving along the Azerbaijani-controlled stretch one week after Azerbaijani authorities set up the checkpoint on September 12 to stop and tax Iranian trucks. Many of the truck drivers have refused to pay hefty “road taxes.”
“We also discussed the situation at the Goris-Kapan highway section, emphasizing Russia’s important and constructive role in terms of reducing tensions and finding solutions to arising problems,” Papikyan wrote on his Facebook page about his meeting with Kopyrkin.
Moscow said last week that the crisis on the Goris-Kapan underscores the need to demarcate the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. Russia has reportedly submitted relevant proposals to Baku and Yerevan and is awaiting their responses.
“In the meantime, we will continue joint efforts to unblock transport and economic links in the region in line with the implementation of [Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani] agreements reached at the highest level,” said Russian Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Maria Zakharova last week.
To hell with Turkey. Armenian must not let our borders with Iran to be cut off. The open border with Iran is our life line. It was Iran that on our difficult days help Armenian with all sorts of supplies. Iran is our only friend in the region.
I hate to say it but Armenia has no friends. There is an old saying that says The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend. That’s how I would characterize the current Iranian government despite the fact that both of our nations have had very friendly relations over the centuries and when there was NO Turkey and NO Azerbaijan to speak of in the region. Being familiar with Persian mentality I would say that the Islamic republic of Iran, distinguished and different from former kingdom of Iran, considers the disputed territory of Artsakh, falsely referred to as karabakh, NOT as Turkish or pseudo-Turkish Azerbaijani territory but as an Islamic territory once under Persian control. If the leadership of the Islamic republic of Iran was a true friend of Armenia its foreign minister Zarif would not have congratulated terrorist artificial Azerbaijan’s chicken-hawk leader Aliyev over the last war of 2020 which in reality was planned and conducted by terrorist NATO member Turkey using other terrorists in the region, including hypocritical and morally-bankrupt Israel, and their deadly weapons against the Armenians. In the least, he should have shut his mouth and remain neutral.
Iran needs Armenia because Armenia physically and strategically stands in the way of two terrorist Turkish and pseudo-Turkish Azerbaijani states, falsely coined as two-states one nation which is only a euphemism for anti-Armenian movement by two racist tribes having nothing in common other than linguistically, from uniting which will be a threat to Iran’s sovereignty given the fact that there a sizeable Turkish-speaking Persian population living in Northwestern Iran, an ancient Armenian territory, that can be exploited by fascist pan-Turkist ideologies. Armenia needs Iran economically and primarily as an outlet to the outside world given the fact that, unlike Iran, the Turkified anti-Russian and FAKE Christian state of Georgia is under Turkish and Azerbaijani influence through petrodollar bribes.