Ankara has broken its official silence and provided details on ongoing reconciliation talks with its historic foe, Armenia. In a lengthy background briefing, a senior Turkish diplomat described the substance of the talks, what their goal was and the multiple challenges that lie ahead. Speaking on the sidelines of the annual ambassadors’ huddle organized by the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the official stressed that in order to avert “big disappointments,” the sides were focused on confidence-building steps to be taken “one at a time.” The official was addressing critics’ claims that Turkey is deliberately keeping the pace of the talks slow in order to allow its regional ally Azerbaijan to pressure Armenia into further concessions on the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Turkey played a key role in helping Azerbaijan wrest back huge chunks of territory from Armenia in a brief and bloody war in the fall of 2020.

The official said that Serdar Kilic, Turkey’s special envoy for normalization with Armenia, was ready to travel to Yerevan for the fifth round of talks and insisted that these be held either in Turkey or Armenia. The previous rounds were held initially in Moscow, then in Vienna. Armenia is reluctant to accede to the Turkish demand until the land border between the two sides is fully opened.

Turkey was the first country to recognize Armenia when it declared its independence from the Soviet Union in 1992. But diplomatic relations were never established as Armenia and Azerbaijan slid into conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh.