There is a risk of stalling Armenian-Turkish normalization process - Pashinyan

YEREVAN, April 13. /ARKA/. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said today failure to make quick progress in the efforts to normalize relations with Turkey may stall the entire process.

Speaking in parliament Pashinyan recalled that the countries agreed to proceed with normalization without preconditions. According to Pashinyan, the process continues with this logic.

"In discussions with international colleagues, we say that we have the impression that the process may not have quick results. But if the process does not have quick results, the possibility of stalling is very high. For our part, we have to do everything to prevent this from happening and to be able to move forward by small steps," Pashinyan said.

The Premier stressed that the Armenian side understands all the obstacles and risks but at the same time believes that contacts must continue and become a true dialogue.

The first meeting between Armenian and Turkish envoys for normalization dialogue - Ruben Rubinyan of Armenia and Serdar Kilic of Turkey was held in Moscow on January 14. The second meeting was held on February 24 in Vienna.

Armenian Foreign Ministry described the talks between the special envoys as positive and said the ultimate goal is to achieve full normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations.

Although Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence from the former Soviet Union, the countries have no diplomatic ties and Turkey shut down their common border in 1993, in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan which was locked in a conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Turkey also refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide, committed during 1915-1923 when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman government. The overwhelming majority of historians widely view the event as genocide.

In 2009, Ankara and Yerevan reached an agreement in Zurich to establish diplomatic relations and to open their joint border, but Turkey later said it could not ratify the deal until Armenia withdrew from Nagorno-Karabakh.

In 2020, Turkey strongly backed Azerbaijan in the six-week conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh. -0-