Armenian FM off to Turkey to attend 3+3 platform meeting

YEREVAN, October 18. /ARKA/. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan has left for Turkey to attend the third meeting of the 3+3 consultative regional platform, Foreign Ministry spokesperson Ani Badalyan said. She said Mirzoyan will have also bilateral meetings.

According to Turkish mass media reports, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov, Azerbaijan’s Jeyhun Bayramov, Armenia’s Ararat Mirzoyan and Iran’s recently appointed Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi are expected to focus on regional and international developments and will also exchange the views of their countries on those issues.

The ministers are said also to discuss steps to replace conflicts with efforts to maintain stability and prosperity in the region and concrete cooperation projects for regional interconnectivity.

Hakan Fidan is expected to underline Turkey’s support of peace agreement negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the normalization of ties between Ankara and Yerevan.

The 3+3 platform was proposed by Turkish President Recep Erdogan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in December 2020 ‘to promote cooperation among countries in the region.’ Georgia was also invited to join the platform, but Tbilisi declined the offer. The platform’s first meeting was held at the deputy foreign minister level in Moscow in 2021, and its second meeting was held at the foreign minister level last year in Tehran.-0-