Erdoğan: Turkey could open its borders with Armenia

* Photo: Anadolu Agency (AA) / Baku

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President and ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) Chair Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid an official visit to Azerbaijan and met his counterpart İlham Aliyev in the capital city of Baku yesterday (December 10).

As reported by the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA), President Erdoğan stated that "his country could open its borders to Armenia if Yerevan takes steps toward regional peace."

Speaking at a joint news conference with his Azerbaijani counterpart Aliyev, Erdoğan indicated that they had no issues with the Armenian people.

Drawing attention to Aliyev's proposal to form a six-party platform for regional peace in the South Caucasus in the aftermath of a recent Azerbaijan-Armenia conflict, Erdoğan stated that Armenia could also join the platform alongside Russia, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran and Georgia.

"Should Yerevan fulfil its responsibilities related to such a platform, Turkey might also open its gates to Armenia," said the President, adding:

"So long as these steps are taken, we don't have any problems with opening our gates. That is so because we want to be the pigeons of peace. We want to take the steps of peace. We bear no grudges against the Armenian people. Our problem is with the Armenian administration. We have over 100 thousand Armenian citizens living in Turkey."

Erdogan also criticized the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Minsk Group for failing to resolve the issue in nearly 30 years while praising Russia's role in ending the weeks-long border clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia earlier this year.

'Turkey didn't return France's calls'

Touching upon the resolution of France's National Assembly recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as a separate republic, Erdoğan said that "even the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan did not accept it."

Arguing that Emmanuel Macron, the President of France, had "not learned politics yet", President Erdoğan claimed that France constantly tried to make contacts with Aliyev during the clashes and also reached out to Turkey, but Ankara did not return the phone calls.

Erdogan went on to say that "the Azerbaijani administration would unleash an era of progress in Karabakh within three to five years", adding that the works related to the infrastructure and suprastructure were also on the agenda during their meeting.

'A new cooperation platform in the region'

Azerbaijan's President Aliyev also addressed the reporters after the meeting and thanked Turkey for the support during the clashes with Armenia.

"We are fully prepared for the new era following the historic victory. Today, we exchanged views on the new era with my precious brother and we saw that our views overlap," Aliyev said and briefly added:

"We should form a new cooperation platform in the region. This can be a multilateral platform and all the participants may benefit from it. There are already the traditional Turkey-Azerbaijan-Georgia cooperation, the Azerbaijan-Russia-Iran cooperation, and the Turkey-Russia-Iran cooperation.

"Combining all of these cooperation platforms, we can put forth a new platform. If the Armenian administration draws the right lessons from the war and looks to the future renouncing its baseless allegations, it can also have a place in this platform. We are open to cooperation. We should close this chapter. We should put an end to this animosity."

Turkey and Azerbaijan also signed a number of agreements in the fields of transportation, communication and visa exemption.

CLICK - Turkey passes motion on deployment of troops in Azerbaijan

Relations between the two former Soviet republics, Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan, over Upper Karabakh have remained tense since 1991, however, fresh clashes broke out on September 27, 2020.

The conflicts between Azerbaijan and Armenia, two neighboring countries in the South Caucasus, ended after a Russia-brokered agreement on November 10, when President Vladimir Putin announced that Azerbaijan and Armenia had signed a deal to end the conflict in the region also known as Nagorno-Karabakh. The government of Turkey has also welcomed the truce, terming it a "great victory" for Azerbaijan.

According to what Turkey's state-run AA has reported, Turkey and Russia have since signed a memorandum of understanding to set up a joint Turkish-Russian center to monitor the Karabakh peace deal.

Turkey's Parliament passed the motion on deployment of troops in Azerbaijan in a vote at the General Assembly yesterday (November 17).

(PT/SD)