They also touched upon unspecified “regional matters,” according to an official Turkish readout of the call.
“President Erdogan stated that the normalization between Türkiye and Armenia continues with steps aimed at the launch of direct trade,” it said.
Pashinian’s office said, for its part, that the two leaders stressed the significance of Ankara’s recent, largely symbolic steps taken in the normalization process. Those include the lifting of a longtime Turkish ban on imports from Armenia and permission of Turkish-Armenian cargo shipments through Georgia’s rail link with Turkey. Pashinian has touted these moves during his election campaign.
Turkey continues to make the opening of its border with Armenia conditional on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal acceptable to Azerbaijan. It is still reluctant to implement a 2022 agreement to open the border for Armenian and Turkish diplomatic passport holders as well as citizens of third countries.
Turkish media reported last year that the deal will likely be implemented in March. The Cumhuriyet daily said last month that the partial border opening is now expected on June 4. However, Azerbaijan’s official Azertaj news agency cited an unnamed Turkish Foreign Ministry source as denying the report.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan mentioned the Armenian elections slated for June 7 and praised Pashinian in that context in January. Armenian opposition leaders decried what they called Fidan’s endorsement of Pashinian. They have for years claimed that Pashinian is making unilateral concessions to the Ankara and Baku in hopes of clinging to power. The Armenian premier and his political allies deny this.