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Turkish FM Expects ‘More Courageous’ Steps From Yerevan


TURKEY - Turkey's Foreign Minister Mavlut Cavusoglu (R) shakes hands with Armenia's Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan during the Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF) in Antalya, March 12, 2022.
TURKEY - Turkey's Foreign Minister Mavlut Cavusoglu (R) shakes hands with Armenia's Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan during the Antalya Diplomacy Forum (ADF) in Antalya, March 12, 2022.

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu complained on Thursday that Armenia remains reluctant to hold the next rounds of Turkish-Armenian negotiations on normalizing bilateral relations in Yerevan or Ankara.

He said the Armenian side should become “more courageous” and stop insisting on third countries being the venues of those talks.

“On one hand, you say that relations must be normalized and the [Turkish-Armenian] border must be opened,” Cavusoglu told the Turkish NTV channel. “On the other hand, you do not dare to meet in Turkey and Yerevan.”

“If you don’t agree to even meet in each other’s countries how are you going to take steps on other issues?” he said, appealing to Yerevan.

Special envoys of the two neighboring states met in Moscow in January and in Vienna in February for talks described by both sides as productive. In a related development, Cavusoglu and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan met last month on the sidelines of an international security forum held in the Turkish city of Antalya.

Cavusoglu said that the envoys’ next meeting will again be held in Vienna. But he gave no date for it.

Ankara has for decades linked the establishment of diplomatic relations with Yerevan and the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border to a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan. Cavusoglu has repeatedly made clear that his government will coordinate the Turkish-Armenian normalization talks with Baku.

The chief Turkish diplomat on Thursday stressed the importance of last week’s meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that took place in Brussels. He said he has discussed the summit hosted by the European Union with Azerbaijan’s Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov.

Pashinian said on Wednesday that the Turkish-Armenian dialogue enjoys strong international support and that his government intends to continue it.

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