Washington Breakthrough Spurs Armenia–Azerbaijan–Türkiye Momentum

Executive Summary:

• Following the meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the White House on August 8, there are hopes that Yerevan and Baku are close to signing a long-anticipated peace treaty.
• Armenia and Türkiye have been making progress as the two special envoys for normalizing relations met in Yerevan on September 12. Armenia–Türkiye normalization efforts are believed to be linked to Armenia–Azerbaijan.
• Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said he anticipated that the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan would be signed in the first half of next year, stating that normalization between Armenia and Türkiye would happen soon after.

Against the backdrop of reported progress in normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, there has been similarly positive news in normalizing relations between Armenia and Türkiye (see EDM, August 12). On September 12, former Turkish Ambassador Serdar Kilic, now the country’s special envoy for normalizing relations, traveled across one of two unused border points into Armenia to meet his Armenian counterpart, National Assembly Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan (Azatutyun, September 12). The last time the two men met was in July last year on the border itself (Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, July 30, 2024; OBCT, August 1, 2024).

The two diplomats have been involved in the process since first meeting for talks in Moscow in January 2022 (Eurasianet, January 14, 2022). In March 2024, Kilic had expressed hopes that he could meet Rubinyan in Yerevan (News.am, March 1, 2024). In the identical one-page communique released following the latest meeting, it was noted that the normalization process would continue to be advanced, including the restoration of the railway line between Kars in Türkiye and Gyumri in Armenia, as well as a 2022 undertaking to open the land border for diplomats and third-country citizens. There were also other proposed activities in the area of education and additional flights (Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs; Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, September 12).

The Armenia-Türkiye border was closed in solidarity with Baku when Armenian forces captured the Azerbaijani region of Kelbajar in 1993 during the Karabakh war of the early 1990s (Hetq, April 3, 2006). Following a second war in 2020, in which Azerbaijan emerged victorious, regaining control of territory from Armenian and Karabakh forces, the normalization of relations between Ankara and Yerevan is seen as a byproduct and part of the general unblocking of trade and transportation routes in the region. Critics argue, however, that progress has been slow (Azatutyun, September 13).

As was the case throughout the 2010s when previous attempts were made to normalize Armenia-Turkish relations, nothing is expected to be finalized until normalization between Armenia and Azerbaijan succeeds (Armenian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, October 13, 2009). The recent official meeting between Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders, Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev, along with their foreign ministers, at the White House on August 8, has raised hopes that Armenia is nearing the normalization of relations with Azerbaijan and Türkiye as part of a broader package. 

Some have already called it the “Washington Effect,” implying that Rubinyan and Kilic met because of the apparent breakthrough registered at the White House (YouTube/@CivilNetTV, September 11). Though some Armenian analysts remain cautious, there have been other symbolic developments in the past few years that have led to this point (Jam-News, September 9). Indirect trade between the two countries has been occurring for decades via Georgia, and several major Turkish brands have opened stores in Yerevan (Hraparak, September 14).

In 2023, the crossing was temporarily opened for assistance to be delivered to earthquake-stricken Türkiye, and earlier this year, humanitarian aid was delivered to Syria (Civilnet, March 20). Reopening the border and normalizing relations has long been an objective for successive Armenian governments, especially former President Serzh Sargsyan and now Pashinyan (News.am, September 11). Even in the early 1990s, Türkiye temporarily allowed the supply of wheat to Armenia during extreme shortages despite the Karabakh conflict (Los Angeles Times, September 6, 1992). Even though flights have operated between Yerevan and Istanbul, in January 2023, the Turkish side lifted a prohibition on cargo flights, though it has yet to be taken advantage of (Eurasianet, January 9, 2023).

Toward the end of June, Pashinyan met Turkish President Tayyip Erdoğan in Istanbul, where the two leaders discussed the normalization process (Prime Minister of Armenia, June 20). A week later, Armenian and Turkish officials also met to discuss cooperation in the area of energy (Arka, June 27). In September, by official government decree, an illustration of Mount Ararat, known as Mount Ağrı in Türkiye, will be removed from Armenian border stamps starting November 1 this year (News.am, September 14; Azatutyun; News.am, September 15). The decision to remove the image came a day before Kilic visited Yerevan. Pashinyan denies any connection, but it has long been suspected that Yerevan will have to drop some of its national symbols considered as possible territorial claims on its neighbors (OBCT, January 12; ARKA, May 22, 2023; see EDM, September 31, 2024; Forbes, August 9; ArmenPress, September 18).

Senior opposition forces, such as those linked to former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, have been quick to condemn the move (News.am, September 15). In 2008, the Armenian Football Federation had removed Ararat from its logo ahead of a historic soccer match with Türkiye, launching the last attempt at normalization, until opposition demanded that it be changed back (Azatutyun, October 8, 2008; see EDM, September 9, 2009).

At the end of August, Pashinyan flew via Azerbaijani airspace to participate in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization Summit in Tianjin, the People’s Republic of China, and for the return journey to Yerevan (ArmenPress, September 6). He was also photographed chatting jovially with Aliyev on the sidelines of the event while the two leaders’ spouses posed for photographs with each other and also with Erdoğan’s wife (Agos; Axar, September 1). Both Anna Hakobyan and Mehriban Aliyeva shared the images on their social media, an unprecedented first, widely seen as an encouraging sign to present to the populations of both countries.

Pashinyan, whose ratings have plummeted since coming to power in 2018, has staked his political future on bringing his much-touted “peace agenda” to fruition. In recent days, he has been even more active by pronouncing that this policy was the demand of the population (Armenpress, September 11; ArmenPress; News.am, September 15).

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said Ankara expects the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan to be signed in the first half of next year, even if the Kilic–Rubinyan meeting did not yield a concrete timeline for normalization (APA, September 13). “As soon as the final agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan is signed, we will also quickly normalize relations with Armenia,” Fidan is quoted as saying (News.am, September 13). For now, however, Baku still expects that Yerevan should first remove a controversial preamble to the Armenian constitution (see EDM, June 25, 2024). Armenia maintains that it is ready to sign the treaty immediately and that a referendum to change the constitution will happen following next year’s elections in June (ArmenPress, September 13; Azatutyun, September 20).

It is also likely that both Ankara and Baku await seeing visible signs that restored communication between Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhchivan through Armenia is beyond doubt. The route, referred to as the Zangezur Corridor in Azerbaijan and Türkiye, was agreed in Washington D.C. on August 8 and is now more commonly referred to as the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity (TRIPP) (Azatutyun, September 11, September 20).

On September 5, the Deputy Prime Ministers also made unprecedented visits to both sides of the Armenian-Azerbaijan border close to the border with Iran as part of this too (ARKA, September 5). It is believed that the next stage of demarcating the shared border will be carried out in this area now that TRIPP must be implemented (Azatutyun, September 11).

The meeting between Kilic and Rubinyan this month follows other small but highly symbolic developments since the Washington Declaration and the initialing of the peace treaty, officially entitled the Agreement on Establishment of Peace and Inter-State Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan. Both were also fortuitous in that they happened less than ten months before the parliamentary elections next June in Armenia. It had long been speculated that Pashinyan hopes for the normalization of relations with Azerbaijan or Türkiye, or likely both, by or soon after the crucial vote in June 2026 (Commonspace, September 6).