Turkey Again Conditions Border Opening on Armenia-Azerbaijan Peace Accord

ANKARA — Turkey will open its border with Armenia if Armenia negotiates a peace accord with Azerbaijan, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday, following fresh normalization talks between Ankara and Yerevan.

“Meetings between Armenia and Azerbaijan continue, and we must prepare our scenario in case of the normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations,” Fidan told the Turkish daily Sabah. “The work in that direction continues. We could implement the positive scenario; that is, open the border with Armenia.”

For decades, Ankara has made the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border and the establishment of diplomatic relations with Yerevan conditional on a resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict acceptable to Baku. Turkish leaders have maintained this condition even after the start of normalization talks with the current Armenian government in early 2022. Last month, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reiterated that the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal should include a land corridor through Armenia to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave.

Turkish and Armenian special envoys resumed talks on Tuesday after a two-year hiatus. They agreed to explore the possibility of restoring a rail link between the two neighboring states that has not functioned since 1993, according to identical statements from the Turkish and Armenian foreign ministries.

The statements did not specify time frames for the implementation of an agreement reached by Armenian parliament vice-speaker Ruben Rubinyan and senior Turkish diplomat Serdar Kilic in July 2022. The agreement called for the opening of the border for Armenian and Turkish diplomatic passport holders as well as citizens of third countries. Rubinyan complained in June that the Turkish side had taken no steps to implement it.

In a post on the social media platform X, Rubinyan described his latest meeting with Kilic as “good.” The Turkish negotiator wrote that the meeting held on the Turkish-Armenian border was “constructive.”