ANKARA — Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Monday discussed steps to expand cooperation between their countries.
The meeting followed the Aug. 8 peace summit in Washington, hosted by US President Donald Trump, between Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
What happened: Erdogan and Pashinyan met in China’s northern city of Tianjin on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization leaders’ summit, the Turkish government’s Directorate of Communications said in a statement.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan and his Armenian counterpart, Ararat Mirzoyan, also joined the talks, according to the statement.
“Erdogan noted that steps aimed at increasing cooperation between Turkey and Armenia are being explored,” the statement said.
Pashinyan posted on X that the pair “stressed the importance of constructive dialogue for fostering trust, advancing regional connectivity [and] ensuring lasting stability [and] peace.”
Background: Turkey recognized Armenia’s independence after the Soviet Union’s collapse in 1991, but the two countries have never established formal diplomatic ties.
Normalization talks launched in January 2022 produced limited steps, including simplified visa rules and partial border openings, but Ankara conditioned full normalization on progress in the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process. Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993, backing Azerbaijan in its disputes with Yerevan.
Following decades of conflict over the once contested Nagorno-Karabakh region, which came under Azerbaijani control in 2021, the peace pledge signed by Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders at the Washington summit marked a fresh turning point toward a potential comprehensive peace treaty between the two South Caucasus powers.
Why it matters: The Aug. 8 summit at the White House, during which Pashinyan and Aliyev signed a joint declaration outlining a prospective peace deal, was expected to give new momentum to Ankara-Yerevan talks.
Erdogan on Monday welcomed the progress achieved in the peace talks between Azerbaijan and Armenia, according to the Turkish statement.
In a separate meeting on Monday with Aliyev on the sidelines of the summit, Erdogan said that “Turkey would continue to contribute to the peace” between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Know more: At the Aug. 8 trilateral peace summit at the White House, Aliyev and Pashinyan also reached separate agreements with US President Donald Trump.
Under the deals, Armenia will lease the stretch of the Zangezur Corridor that crosses its southern Syunik region to a US company for 99 years, connecting Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan exclave on Turkey’s border to the Azerbaijani mainland.
The corridor, officially renamed the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity under the Washington agreements, is seen by Ankara as a critical gateway for pipelines, railways and roads connecting Turkey to the Caspian Basin, Central Asia and beyond.
