“I am fully confident that your strategic vision of establishing lasting peace and stability in the region and ensuring the necessary cooperation in that direction will be successfully completed,” read the message cited by Pashinian’s office.
The Turkish Foreign Ministry praised the elections on Monday. It expressed hope that Armenia’s leadership will take “bolder steps towards peace and normalization in the region” after securing reelection.
Pashinian phoned Erdogan four days before the vote. According to a Turkish readout of the call, the two leaders discussed efforts to normalize Turkish-Armenian relations and “regional matters.”
Turkey continues to make the opening of its border with Armenia conditional on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal acceptable to Azerbaijan. That means accepting Baku’s demands for a change of Armenia’s constitution and the opening of a land corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave and Turkey.
Throughout the election campaign, Armenian opposition groups said that Pashinian will make such concessions if he and his Civil Contract party win another term in office. They rejected as fraudulent the official vote results that gave victory to the ruling party.
Contrary to reports in the Turkish press, Ankara refrained from implementing ahead of the elections a 2022 agreement to open the border for Armenian and Turkish diplomatic passport holders as well as citizens of third countries. It took instead other, largely symbolic steps. 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 touted these moves during his election campaign.