YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan in New York on September 23 to discuss Turkish-Armenian relations and the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process.
The talks were held at the Turkish House on the sidelines of the ongoing session of the UN General Assembly.
In a statement, the Turkish presidency said that Erdogan voiced support for “the normalization process with Armenia in the areas of bilateral trade and transportation” and praised “growing cooperation with Armenia in international organizations.” He was also reported to hail “reciprocal steps” taken by Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Pashinyan’s office reported, for its part, that the two leaders expressed readiness to “advance” that process and, in particular, commercial ties between their countries. It said they also “stressed the need” for the implementation of an agreement to open a US-administered transit corridor for Azerbaijan through Armenia.
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 the corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave and Turkey. There were no indications after Erdogan’s latest talks with Pashinyan that Ankara will drop these preconditions.
Contrary to reports in the Turkish press, Ankara refrained from implementing ahead of Armenia’s recent parliamentary 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, including a permission of Turkish-Armenian cargo shipments through Georgia’s rail link with Turkey.
