Armenia and Turkey To Appoint Envoys In Bid To Normalize Ties
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Roshan Amiri
- . December 14, 2021
- . Update: December 14, 2021 7:13 pm
Turkey– Armenia and Turkey will appoint special envoys to discuss steps to normalize their ties. Turkey’s foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu announced this news in a parliament meeting on Monday. He also said charter flights between Istanbul and Yerevan would restart soon. He also spoke to lawmakers in the Parliament and said that Turkey would also move in coordination with Azerbaijan on the normalization steps with Armenia. Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991.
Mevlut Cavusoglu on steps to normalize ties
Mevlut Cavusoglu said that Turkey has already consulted with Azerbaijan on this matter to normalize ties between them. Soon, Turkey and Azerbaijan will mutually appoint special envoys with Armenia for the steps toward normalization. Cavusoglu further said that they will act together with Azerbaijan at every step.
Armenia and Turkey’s landmark peace accord
In 2009, Armenia and Turkey signed a landmark peace accord to restore ties and open their shared border after decades. However, the ties remained tense because of Azerbaijan. Earlier, Turkey shut down the border with Armenia in 1993, in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan. Reportedly, during that time, conflict erupted between Azerbaijan and Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region. New tensions between them erupted again in 2020.
During the six-week war, Azerbaijan retook several cities including 300 settlements and villages. Turkey supported Azerbaijan again in this matter. The conflict ended a Russia-brokered peace deal and Azerbaijan gained control of a significant part of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Reportedly, the territory lies within Azerbaijan but was under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia. Turkey and Azerbaijan are now engaged in “intense diplomatic” efforts to bring peace to the Caucasus region. Armenia and Turkey have a more than a century-old hostility over the deaths of millions of people in 1915 in the Ottoman Turkey wars.
