The President of Turkey, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in his last interview with the state media, stated that Azerbaijan has always been a red line for Turkey, and after solving Azerbaijan’s problems, Ankara will open the border. Elaborating on the phone conversation with Pashinyan, Erdogan said, “I accepted with satisfaction when I heard that Pashinyan shared such thoughts with us from the point of view of regional peace and cooperation, but we already expect concrete steps beyond words.”
What exactly did Nikol Pashinyan agree to, what ideas did he share, and did he refer to the well-known theses that the Turkish-Azerbaijani side puts forward: the opening of the Zangezur Corridor and Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, Chair of the NA Foreign Relations Committee Eduard Aghajanyan answered, “There cannot be any basis to think, assume, or claim that the Armenian side can even consider the Zangezur corridor as a subject of discussion under any circumstances. Therefore, there will be any statement by any official of Azerbaijan or Turkey, which may be related to the Zangezur Corridor or our bilateral relations, and which is not confirmed by the Armenian side, please ignore it.”
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As for what Erdogan meant when he said that Pashinyan shares those thoughts, Aghajanyan answered, “I cannot comment on Erdogan’s statements and I don’t want to. Those inquiries should be directed to their office. I am not the best candidate to comment on Erdogan’s statements.” In response to the question about if the content is distorted after the meetings related to the Armenian-Turkish processes and if it is discussed in the ruling team to stop the relations until better times come, he said, “No, such a thing is not discussed. In the 2021 extraordinary parliamentary elections, our political team submitted a bid to continue governing Armenia and lead the country, advancing the peace agenda. The peace agenda implies that we have to solve our problems in the region with our neighbors and we will triple and quadruple our efforts in that direction, so that eventually peace will be established in the region. Severing the relationship would be counterproductive to our vision and our strategy.
Therefore, there is no such desire. We will do everything, involving all our partners, so that the focus is always on our region and eventually the peace agenda reaches its goal.”
Eduard Aghajanyan answered that we should ask ourselves: if we freeze relations with Turkey, what will it give us in the short, middle, and long term? “As long as the answer to this question does not give us any positive impulse, naturally we will not make such a decision. On the other hand, staying and continuing negotiations despite difficulties and problems has a very clear and pragmatic purpose and a positive possible outcome.”
Aghajanyan answered the question about how yesterday, the special envoy of Turkey was at the Armenian-Turkish border from the Kars area. He had meetings. What is the situation on our side? Is Aghajanyan going to visit those border areas to understand how ready the infrastructures are? “During the last meetings of the envoys, two agreements were reached and certain preparatory works must be done in order to make them a reality. By mirror logic, it is assumed that the same questions and practical problems will be present in the near-border areas from both the Armenian and Turkish sides. The agreements also involve solving logistical problems. This is welcome and shows that the arrangements are already moving into a practical phase, which is good news.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
