Top Armenian diplomat heads to Turkey for landmark visit
Top Armenian diplomat will pay a rare visit to Turkey after two killer earthquakes.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan will pay a visit to Turkey on Wednesday, the Turkish Foreign Ministry announced Tuesday.
The ministry said Mirzoyan would meet with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu and then travel to Adiyaman, where Armenian rescuers are working save survivors of two powerful earthquakes that struck Turkey last week and killed more than 35,418 and injured more than 105,500, according to official figures.
Turkey has no diplomatic relations with Armenia and sealed its border with the country in the 1990s in solidarity with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Ankara and Yerevan have been in direct dialogue since late 2021 in a bid to establish diplomatic ties and fully normalize their relations after similar efforts had failed in 2015. The killer earthquakes that hit Turkey’s south on Feb. 6 have accelerated the fence-mending process between the two capitals, with Armenia swiftly dispatching aid to the disaster zone.
The trip will mark the second visit by Mirzoyan who travelled to the country last year to attend Antalya Diplomacy Forum.
