Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said it is necessary to "seize the opportunity" to revive relations with Armenia in parallel with the normalization of relations between Yerevan and Azerbaijan.
During his visit to Azerbaijan on Thursday, he said that "the normalization processes between Azerbaijan and Armenia and between Turkey and Armenia are interlinked."
Yerevan and Baku began drafting a peace agreement between the two countries in October, and Erdogan then held talks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the Czech Republic on the sidelines of their participation in the European Political Group summit this month.
The Turkish president added in a press conference alongside his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev that all parties should "seize the opportunity."
The two presidents were attending the inauguration of a new airport in Zangilan, a city retaken from Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh during the war in 2020.
The Turkish president made it clear before leaving Azerbaijan for his country on Thursday evening that Baku had taken sincere steps and presented positive proposals during its negotiations with Berivan, and showed that its ultimate goal is to establish lasting peace, prosperity and stability.
"As I always say, there is no loser in peace. Our only goal is to build a prosperous future for our region," he added.
Erdogan called for "optimal use of the opportunity" in order to make the "tracks of normalization" a success.
The relationship between Turkey and Armenia - the former Soviet republic that gained its independence in 1991 - has witnessed a decades-old dispute over Yerevan's claim to recognize the allegations of the "genocide" of the Armenians during the Ottoman Empire in 1915, which Ankara strongly rejects and denies the occurrence of such massacres against the Armenians.
Although there are no diplomatic relations between Ankara and Berivan, the relationship between them was severely strained due to Turkey’s support for Azerbaijan in the year 2020, as Azerbaijan began the process of “liberating” its lands from Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, and after battles that lasted for 44 days, the two countries reached a ceasefire agreement, Provides for Baku to regain control of the "occupied" provinces.
After a series of mediation efforts from Brussels and Washington, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met this October in Geneva to begin drafting a peace treaty.