Turkey and Armenia have agreed to press forward with efforts to ascertain diplomatic relations "with out situations" that would result in reopening their borders for commerce, their overseas ministers mentioned on Saturday.
Ararat Mirzoyan met along with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Çavuşoğlu on the sidelines of a diplomacy discussion board close to the Turkish Mediterranean metropolis of Antalya throughout a uncommon go to to Turkey.
Mirzoyan mentioned he welcomed Turkey's invitation to the discussion board "as a optimistic sign" for improved relations between the 2 international locations with many years of bitterness and no diplomatic ties.
"I can say that it was a really productive and constructive assembly," Çavuşoğlu mentioned.
Turkey, an in depth ally of Azerbaijan, shut down its border with Armenia in 1993 in a present of solidarity with Baku, which was locked in a battle with Yerevan over the Nagorno-Karabakh area.
In 2020, Turkey strongly backed Azerbaijan within the six-week battle with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that noticed Azerbaijan acquire management of a big a part of the area.
Till just lately, there was a century of ongoing hostility between each nations after Ottoman Turkey carried out a genocide towards Armenians in 1915 when an estimated 1.5 million have been killed.
Turkey has neither admitted to the severity of the genocide nor the dimensions of its killings, saying solely 300,000 died.
The 2 international locations have appointed particular representatives who've held two rounds of talks in Moscow and Vienna to enhance ties.
Turkey and Armenia reached an settlement in 2009 to ascertain formal relations and to open their mutual border, however the deal was by no means ratified due to robust opposition from Azerbaijan.
This time round, nevertheless, Azerbaijan has given the nod for the reconciliation efforts, and Çavuşoğlu has mentioned that Ankara would "coordinate" the normalisation course of with Baku.
As a primary step towards reconciliation, constitution flights between Armenia's capital Yerevan and Turkey's greatest metropolis Istanbul resumed earlier this 12 months.
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