In recent days, the first direct contact between the Turkish president and the Armenian prime minister has been noted. A phone call in a complex attempt at diplomatic and industrial normalization between the two countries. Baku and Moscow are interested spectators of the evolution of the framework. The resistance of the Armenian diaspora, which needs above all the popularity of genocide.
Milan (AsiaNews) – Turkey and Armenia are preparing to go through a technical crisis, more out of convenience than conviction, but which may lead to the partial reopening of the border between the two countries. Two days ago, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had a verbal telephone exchange with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashiyan. Officially, the phone call was officially aimed at exchanging vows for Eid al-Adha, in Turkish Kurban Bayrami, the sacrificial dinner. Erdogan responded by greeting Vardavar, the classic “water” festival, also observed by the Muslim minority living in the country and to be held on July 24. Recurrences aside, the phone call is part of a complex, and still ongoing, framework of normalization of diplomatic, advertising and tourism relations between the two. Countries.
The border between Turkey and Armenia has been closed since 1993, that is, since the first Nagorno-Karabakh war, when Turkey unhesitatingly sided with Azerbaijan, which is connected to Ankara for cultural and devout reasons. It also weighs negatively on relations between the two countries. it was the Armenian Genocide of 1915, which claimed the lives of more than a million people and which Crescent has stubbornly denied, denouncing instead the deaths of thousands of Muslims at the hands of “rebellious Armenians. “Finally, the Turkish army and logistical aid to Baku during the Nagorno-Karabakh clash in 2020 seemed to have ruled out any reconciliation options.
The Armenian-majority enclave on Azerbaijani territory, the scene of bloody conflicts, remains an unresolved node and one of the points of the Caucasus. But Vladimir Putin needs a solid region and, above all, he is involved in politics, economics and power. Axis that ankara bureaucracy with Baku, so it welcomes the reconciliation between Erdogan and Pashiyan, which deserves to lead on the Turkish side to the renunciation of a military presence on Azerbaijani territory (incompatible with the “normalization” of relations).
These are at least the hopes of the Kremlin camp. Possibly Ankara could give up having the army in the Caucasus (for now), but that will hardly replace the direction of a foreign policy increasingly aimed at creating zones of influence and where the Caucasus is a maximum outlet of herbs. Reconciliation with Armenia can also be read that way, and in this case it would not be good news for Russia. Yerevan is the party that has had to make the maximum concessions, especially in some territories. of Nagorno-Karabakh, which have returned to the rule of Azerbaijan, so that relations with Turkey can be resumed and the country does not suffer the announcement of isolation that it has suffered since the 1990s and by which it has created a double link with Moscow.
Meanwhile, Ankara and Yerevan are beginning to take their first steps. On 1 July, a memorandum was signed in Vienna to “implement it in the near future”. In the Armenian aspect, the wish is that it be implemented as soon as possible. In February, the first advertising flights between one side of the border and the other resumed, and two days ago Erdogan’s first direct contact with the Armenian prime minister took place.
According to Turkish newspapers, the two leaders insisted on the importance of relations between the two countries, thus contributing to peace and prosperity in the region. In the first phase, the border between Turkey and Armenia can only be opened to people from third countries. that they have to cross it for tourist purposes. It turns out that everything is going well, but especially Pashiyan is in trouble due to internal opposition and also the resistance of the Armenian diaspora, for whom the popularity of the 1915 genocide is the sine qua non condition for the resumption of any form of relations.
In recent days, the first direct contact between the Turkish president and the Armenian prime minister has been noted. A phone call in a complex attempt at diplomatic and industrial normalization between the two countries. Baku and Moscow are interested spectators of the evolution of the framework. The resistance of the Armenian diaspora, which needs above all the popularity of genocide.