Turkey not planning to meet with Armenian officials - FM

By Trend

Turkish officials don’t plan to meet with the Armenian Foreign Minister on the issue of normalizing relations, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a joint press conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, Trend reports on Sept.27.

According to Cavusoglu, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made several statements on the above issue, and the Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accepted them with approval.

Turkey wanted peace to be established in the region after the end of the 2020 second Karabakh war, the Turkish foreign minister said.

"Azerbaijan made a proposal for peace, but never received a positive response from Armenia. We’ll coordinate all steps and make decisions together with Azerbaijan," he added.

Following over a month of military action to liberate its territories from Armenian occupation from late Sept. to early Nov. 2020, Azerbaijan has pushed Armenia to sign the surrender document. A joint statement on the matter was made by the Azerbaijani president, Armenia's PM, and the president of Russia.

A complete ceasefire and a cessation of all hostilities in the zone of the Karabakh conflict were introduced on Nov. 10, 2020.

The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. As a result of the ensuing war, the Armenian Armed Forces occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan, including the Karabakh region and seven surrounding districts. The 1994 ceasefire agreement was followed by peace negotiations.