Armenia – Turkey relations

The enthusiasm which followed the Turkish President’s September visit to Yerevan is slowly fading. Armenian analysts mainly blame Turkey for this.

The Turkish – Armenian border was closed and diplomatic relations suspended in 1993. Turkey insists on the de-occupation of Karabakh and the peaceful resolution of the conflict and on Armenia giving up its claim for international recognition of the humanitarian catastrophe of the beginning of the 20th century as a genocide.

On September 6 this year the Turkish President attended the football World Cup qualifying match between the national teams of the two countries in Yerevan and later visited his Armenian counterpart. Big and serious plans were immediately drawn by Armenian politicians. They expected prompt and direct results without any preconditions. The new relationship was to start with the restoration of diplomatic relations and the rehabilitation of the Karsi-Gumri railway. But as yet none of these plans look likely to be fulfilled.

Armenian analyst Haik Demoian thinks that Turkey should give up connecting the Karabakh issue with normalizing bilateral relations. He also insists that anti-Armenian information activities in Turkey should stop. These are also the positions of official Yerevan, and recently Armenian Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian highlighted the same approaches in the Hurriyt newspaper.