Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Monday said he believes his country will achieve full normalisation with Turkiye in the “near future”, Anadolu Agency reported.
Citing remarks to lawmakers at a joint committee hearing in parliament, state news agency Armenpress reported that Mirzoyan said Armenia’s dialogue with Turkiye has continued.
Noting that several meetings have taken place in this context, Mirzoyan said one of these meetings included one held by the working group established for the reopening of the Kars-Gyumri railway.
“My expectation and belief is that in the very near future, at some stage, we will have tangible progress in terms of the full normalisation of our relations with Turkiye,” Mirzoyan said.
“I want to express confidence that in the near future we will, in fact, have full normalization,” he added.
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The foreign minister was also quoted as saying that direct trade between Armenia and Turkiye already exists in the customs sense, though it still takes place through third countries in the geographical sense.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkiye was among the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence on 21 September, 1991.
However, Ankara closed its border and severed diplomatic ties in 1993 following Armenia’s occupation of Azerbaijan’s Karabakh region.
Relations began to improve after the Second Karabakh War in the fall of 2020, with both countries appointing special envoys to pursue a normalization process, as part of which multiple rounds of talks were held.
READ: Armenian premier says he hopes border with Turkiye will open soon
