Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, called on Armenia to do more in accelerating the peace process, emphasising the importance of this for the normalisation of Armenian-Turkish normalisation.
Speaking on Thursday, (21 July), Çavuşoğlu explicitly stated that Turkey and Azerbaijan were coordinating their positions in their efforts to normalise relations with Armenia. He said that while the process with Armenia had been started in a bilateral format, it was in reality a tripartite undertaking, in which every step was coordinated with Azerbaijan, whether or not this was what Armenia wanted. He added that Azerbaijan and Turkey were “one nation and two states”, and that if there was to be peace in the region, all actors, including Georgia and Central Asian countries would need to play a part.
Yerevan has made clear on numerous occasions that it wants an unconditional normalisation with its neighbour.
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The top Turkish diplomat also urged Armenia to take concrete steps to facilitate the normalisation of relations, stating that so far, Armenia’s leadership had failed to take action on certain issues, “be it the Zangezur corridor, the comprehensive peace treaty or steps towards us.”
Earlier this month, Ankara's and Yerevan's special representatives for the normalisation of Armenian-Turkish relations met in Vienna, where they agreed to open the shared border to citizens of third countries, and to restart mutual cargo shipments. However, a clear time frame for this has not yet been set.