"A historic visit": Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan to travel to Türkiye this Friday
"All regional issues will be discussed" during this trip, which was made at the invitation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the speaker of the Armenian parliament said.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is making a rare visit to Turkey , his country's arch-enemy, on Friday, a trip Yerevan has described as a "historic" step toward peace in the region. "This is a historic visit, as it will be the first time that a leader of the Republic of Armenia will visit Turkey at this level," Armenian Parliament Speaker Alen Simonyan told reporters.
"All regional issues will be discussed" during this trip, which was made at the invitation of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, he said. Armenia and Turkey have never established diplomatic relations, and their shared border has been closed since the 1990s. Relations between Ankara and Yerevan remain tense due to the mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during the First World War.
Armenia, which claims up to 1.5 million people died between 1915 and 1916, calls these atrocities a genocide, which is now recognized by 34 countries, including the United States, France, Germany, Brazil, and Russia. Turkey, for its part, formally rejects the term and estimates the Armenian death toll at between 300,000 and 500,000.
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On the eve of Nikol Pashinyan's visit, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev traveled to Turkey on Thursday to hold talks with Recep Tayyip Erdogan, calling the partnership between Baku and Ankara "an important factor not only at the regional level, but also at the global level." The Turkish leader, for his part, reiterated his wish to see "peace established between Azerbaijan and Armenia."
An Armenian foreign minister told AFP that Nikol Pashinyan and Recep Tayyip Erdogan would discuss on Friday efforts to sign a comprehensive peace treaty between Yerevan and Ankara's ally Baku, as well as the implications for the region of the war between Iran and Israel. According to Alen Simonian, "the risks of war (with Azerbaijan) are currently minimal, and we must work to neutralize them," he said, assuring that Nikol Pashinyan's visit to Turkey represented "a step in this direction."
In March, Baku and Yerevan announced that they had agreed on a "peace agreement" , but the text has still not been signed, as Azerbaijan has drawn up a list of demands that it is urging Armenia to fulfill first.
lefigaro
