Ankara, (EFE). – Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan hosted Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Istanbul on Friday for the first official bilateral visit of an Armenian head of government to Turkey.
Shortly after 6:00 pm local time, the leaders met at the Dolmabahçe Palace, built by Armenian architects in the service of the Ottoman sultans, located on the banks of the Bosphorus.
Pashinyan was received with an official ceremony and stood amid a guard of honor between the Turkish and Armenian flags for an official photo.
Erdoğan and Pashinyan mainly discussed the peace process and dialogue in the South Caucasus, with the Turkish president stressing the importance of peace negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia, according to a statement from the Turkish Presidency.
He added that Turkey supports this process from the standpoint that all parties involved will benefit from the peace agreements and that Ankara will use all its diplomatic capabilities to achieve stability not only in the Caucasus but throughout the region.
The meeting also assessed the steps toward the “normalization process” between both countries, the statement added, without providing further details.
Meanwhile, Armenian parliament speaker Alen Simonyan told reporters earlier on Friday that it “is a historic visit, as it will be the first time a head of the Republic of Armenia visits Turkey at this level.”
Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize the Republic of Armenia when it gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
However, diplomatic relations were put on hold due to historical tensions, and the border between Armenia and Turkey was closed in 1993, due to Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
In 2008, Turkish President Abdullah Gül traveled to Yerevan to attend a soccer match with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan.
In 2009, Sargsyan returned the visit by traveling to the Turkish city of Bursa for another match. However, soccer diplomacy did not advance the rapprochement process.
In 2022, Erdoğan and Pashinian met for the first time at a European forum in Prague.
The following year, the Armenian leader traveled to Ankara to attend the Turkish president’s inauguration for a third term alongside dozens of other heads of state and government.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Armenian counterpart, Ararat Mirzoyan, also participated in Friday’s meeting.
Although a joint press conference has not been confirmed, the meeting is expected to be a step toward establishing full diplomatic relations and opening the border. EFE
iut/mcd
