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(Bloomberg) — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met Thursday for the first talks in thirteen years between the leaders of the two countries as part of an effort to identify diplomatic ties.
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“Sincerely, we can achieve our purpose of total normalization in our region on the basis of a smart neighborhood,” Erdogan told a TV reporter after the Pashinyan assembly. “There were some requests and they were duly sent to our special envoys,” he said. He said without giving additional details. The foreign ministers of the two countries have also been told to prepare to take steps to advance the normalization process, Erdogan said.
The Prague assembly comes as both sides seek to triumph over the legacy of decades of hostility related to the mass massacres of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915 that the United States, Russia, France and many other countries recognize as genocide, a characterization Ankara rejects. This is the first meeting between the leaders of Turkey and Armenia since the failed attempt to identify ties in 2009.
The talks come as foreign efforts also accentuate Armenia’s standoff with neighboring Azerbaijan over the long-disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 to help Azerbaijan and provided military aid to its best friend during a 44-day war. Two years ago it killed thousands until Russian President Vladimir Putin negotiated a truce.
Since then, Pashinyan and Erdogan have launched an investigation process to identify links. Azerbaijan and Armenia have also begun talks to reach a comprehensive peace agreement, even as many others have been killed in repeated border clashes between their troops.
In the latest fighting last month, Armenia accused Azerbaijan of invading part of its territory, prompting interventions by the United States and France to try to ease tensions and convince Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to withdraw. Azerbaijan denies occupying Armenian territory.
Aliyev and Pashinyan will hold talks in the Czech capital on Thursday with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Charles Michel. Erdogan is expected to meet Macron at the informal summit of EU leaders in Prague.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are striving to demarcate their usual border and open shipping routes within the framework of the ceasefire agreement. Aliyev expressed “optimism” on Wednesday about reaching a peace deal.
“We are adopting a peace program,” Pashinyan told Armenian lawmakers in the capital, Yerevan, on Wednesday. “I see a way forward. “
The clashes between Armenia and Azerbaijan “have cast a shadow over a lovely climate,” Erdogan said on September 20. Still, he said, “we believe it is imaginable to sign a comprehensive peace agreement between the two countries as soon as possible. “
Erdogan argued that Azerbaijan’s defeat of Armenia means that there are no longer obstacles in the status quo of relations between Ankara and Yerevan. Representatives of the two sides started talks in Moscow in January and agreed in July to start the direct air shipping industry. and opening its borders to third-country nationals.
The legacy of the killing of around 1. 5 million Armenians more than a century ago is on the agenda. Pashinyan said the popularity of the Armenian Genocide has “never been a prerequisite” for relationship building.
During the 2020 war, Azerbaijan regained part of Nagorno-Karabakh and regained seven surrounding districts that Armenian forces had occupied for decades. As part of the truce brokered through Putin, Russia deployed 2,000 peacekeepers to Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave largely populated by Armenians and around the world identified as part of Azerbaijan.
(Updates with Erdogan’s comments in the paragraph)
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