“It is difficult to draw far-reaching conclusions about a telephone conversation, but it can be noted that such a thing has not yet happened, that there were congratulations on the occasion of domestic holidays. This was the first time when the leaders of the two countries had a telephone conversation and congratulated each other on the occasion of internal popular, unofficial holidays,” said Turkish expert Anush Hovhannisyan, talking about the Erdogan-Pashinyan phone conversation and the latest events in the Armenian-Turkish process in a conversation with Aravot.am. According to her observation, apart from the official reports, the public has no other details and they can only conclude that the leaders of the two countries are trying to show some positive changes. ”
Actually, we don’t see any real steps yet. Since the negotiations are closed, there are no details, we do not see real changes in Armenian-Turkish relations. Even the meeting on July 1, which took place, actually did not give Armenia much. We saw that the offer of the Armenian side to open the border at least for RA citizens with diplomatic passports did not come true. They announced that the border will soon be opened for citizens of third countries or for air cargo transportation, which will also not give Armenia much, because firstly we do not have much trade with Turkey, especially after these latest bans, and secondly, air cargo transportation does not contribute to the economic development of Armenia at all. It’s clear, isn’t it, that there’s no real progress? It turns out that instead of real steps, we see statements of a purely image nature.”
Anush Hovhannisyan answered the question: what steps could be expected in order to conclude from this whether there is real progress in relations, for example, the establishment of diplomatic relations? “Turkey recognized the Republic of Armenia after the independence, but from the beginning the recognition of diplomatic relations was conditioned by certain preconditions, which we talked about a lot. In essence, this is the third attempt to establish relations between Armenia and Turkey, and Turkey declares that it is trying to do so without preconditions, while, if we bring at least the information that has reached us through open sources, in fact, although they declare that there are no preconditions, but the prerequisites are mentioned one way or another. For example, it is announced that Turkey will not take any step without the agreement of Azerbaijan, the issue of the Zangezur corridor remains in the air, although the Armenian side says that there is no talk about any corridor. In fact, it is one of Turkey’s demands. In other words, we do not see any real step on Turkey’s part, which would allow Turkey to take some steps in favor of Armenia.”
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