Armenia’s special representative for the normalisation of relations with Turkey called recent statements by Turkey strange, and touched upon the lack of progress in the re-establishment of diplomatic relations.
Discussing the ongoing normalisation process with Turkey on Thursday (30 June), Vice Speaker of Parliament Ruben Rubinyan noted that since the start of the talks, Armenia had been constructive and showed goodwill in an attempt to speed things up. However, he touched upon recent statements made by Ankara that Turkish officials were coordinating the process with Azerbaijan, calling these "strange". He urged Turkey to take meaningful and practical steps to enable diplomatic relations to be re-established. Rubinyan also re-stated the Armenian position that references to a “Zanzegur corridor” by Turkey hindered the process of normalisation.
Earlier today, the Secretary of the Armenian Security Council, Armen Grigoryan, told reporters that despite assertions by both Russian and EU officials that the corridor issue was off the agenda, Azerbaijan and Turkey continued to make false statements insinuating that the issue was still being discussed. “Our policy remains unchanged. When we declare that our positions are now closer, we have progressed only with the logic that any road within the corridor logic is ruled out” he added.
Rubinyan also re-affirmed that, contrary to rumours, the re-delimitation of the Armenian-Turkish border was not on the agenda. He admitted that the process with Turkey had not yet let to any tangible results, but said this did not mean that progress could not be made going forward.
The Armenian envoy and his Turkish counterpart, Ambassador Serdar Kilic, are due to meet in Vienna tomorrow (1 July).