The third meeting between the special representatives of Armenia and Turkey could take place in Vienna, Spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Vahan Hunanyan said in comments to Armenpress.
“There is a preliminary understanding between the sides that the next meeting could take place in Vienna. The public will be properly informed as soon as the timeframes and venue of the meeting get final confirmation,” the Spokesperson said.
Commenting on Turkish Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu’s remarks that the meeting had better take place either in Armenia or Turkey, Hunanyan said: “During the previous attempts of normalization meetings took place in Armenia and Turkey on the levels of both negotiators and even presidents, but, as you know, they didn’t lead to results. I mean, what matters is the political will to reach normalization and readiness to take clear, substantive steps. We are displaying both and we expect the same from Turkey. If there is the will, the location of the meetings will become simply a technical matter.”
Moreover, he said, the proposal to hold the meetings of the special representatives in Armenia and Turkey shows that in Turkey’s understanding of the process that it is of entirely bilateral nature. “In this case, it would have been reasonable not to hear weekly statements from Turkey’s representatives that they are advancing the process in coordination with Azerbaijan,” the Spokesman added.
Speaking about the normalization of the Armenia-Turkey relations Minister Cavusoglu mentioned the need for “courageous” steps.
“The Armenian side fully concurs with the need for making courageous steps. We have numerously showed readiness to move forward, including with the participation of our Foreign Minister in the Antalya Diplomacy Forum and the lifting of the economic embargo. The restoration of flights between Armenia and Turkey was also an important bilateral step,” Vahan Hunanyan said in response.
“We are convinced that the only path for moving forward implies continuous, clear steps. For example, we offered the Turkish side, for the first phase, to open the land border for persons holding diplomatic passports, however the Turkish side is delaying. We believe that this would be a small but substantive, most importantly logical step. We are hopeful that it will be possible to achieve results in this issue,” the Spokesman concluded.
