No agreement yet on maiden meeting of Turkish and Armenian special envoys on normalization of relations
Armenian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman said today that there was no agreement yet about when and where Turkish and Armenian special envoys, picked up by their governments to negotiate normalization of relations between the two countries, could have their first meeting.
YEREVAN, December 27. /ARKA/. Armenian Foreign Ministry’s spokesman said today that there was no agreement yet about when and where Turkish and Armenian special envoys, picked up by their governments to negotiate normalization of relations between the two countries, could have their first meeting.
Earlier today Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said that the first meeting of special envoys could take place in the Russian capital city Moscow.
“The possibility of a meeting in Moscow is being discussed," the spokesman, Vahan Hunanyan said in a Facebook post.
Armenia’s special envoy is the Deputy Chairman of the National Assembly Ruben Rubinyan. His vis-à-vis is Turkey’s former ambassador to the U.S. Serdar Kılıç.
Last week it emerged that FlyOne Armenia airline applied to the Armenian Civil Aviation Committee (CCA) for a permit to perform charter flights from Yerevan to Turkish Istanbul and back. Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said on December 16 that Ankara was considering the applications of Turkish and Armenian airlines for operating flights between Istanbul and Yerevan.
Turkish mass media outlets quoted Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure Adil Karaismayoglu as saying December 23 that flights between Armenia and Turkey will be resumed in the coming days after a 2.5-year break. According to the Minister, the Turkish Pegasus Airlines will carry out the flights.
Although Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence from the former Soviet Union, the countries have no diplomatic ties and Turkey shut down their common border in 1993, in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan which was locked in a conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Turkey also refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide, committed during 1915-1923 when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman government. The overwhelming majority of historians widely view the event as genocide.
In 2009, Ankara and Yerevan reached an agreement in Zurich to establish diplomatic relations and to open their joint border, but Turkey later said it could not ratify the deal until Armenia withdrew from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Last year, Turkey strongly backed Azerbaijan in the six-week conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh. -0