ANKARA (Azatutyun) — Turkey has again demanded that Armenia agree to open an extraterritorial land corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave.
Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavusoglu indicated on October 17 that this remains one of Ankara’s conditions for normalizing Turkish-Armenian relations.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are to reopen their border to commercial and passenger traffic under the terms of a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped their six-week war for Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev has claimed that the deal calls for a permanent overland link for Nakhichevan passing through Armenia’s Syunik province. Aliyev said last December that passage through the “Zangezur corridor” must be exempt from Armenian border controls, meaning that it would have the same status as the existing Lachin corridor connecting Karabakh to Armenia.
Çavusoglu echoed Baku’s demands after attending a meeting of foreign ministers of Turkic countries, including Azerbaijan.
“Azerbaijan states that Lachin and Zangezur must have the same status. Those projects must be implemented,” he said.
