Armenia is ready to fully normalize its relations with Türkiye and take further steps to increase cooperation and connectivity in the South Caucasus, Ruben Rubinyan, deputy speaker of the Armenian Parliament and special representative for the normalization process with Türkiye, said.
Speaking in an exclusive interview with Daily Sabah, Rubinyan said: “Armenia is ready to have fully normalized relations, open borders and establish diplomatic relations right now and right today.”
Political will from the Turkish side is needed, he underlined, saying that Armenia has no preconditions.
“What we have achieved are the following: with Ambassador (Serdar) Kılıç we materialized our agreement that we would enable direct air cargo trade between our countries. This is done. We also started the re-establishment of direct flights between Istanbul and Yerevan. But our major agreement was to open our mutual land border between Türkiye and Armenia for third-country nationals and diplomatic passport holders,” Rubinyan said.
He continued to say that an agreement on opening the land border the next year was achieved in 2022.
“From our side, we got our infrastructure ready, we did the necessary renovations but unfortunately this did not happen,” Rubinyan said, highlighting that Armenia wants to materialize this agreement and waits for Türkiye to engage further.
The land border between the two countries was only briefly reopened for the first time in 30 years in February 2023 to facilitate the passage of humanitarian aid to Türkiye’s earthquake-stricken regions.
After the Second Karabakh War, which started between Azerbaijan and Armenia in September 2020 and continued for 44 days, the ice was broken between Ankara and Yerevan. In December 2021, the two nations appointed special envoys to help normalize relations and in February 2022, Türkiye and Armenia resumed their first commercial flights after a two-year hiatus. Serdar Kılıç was appointed as representative for the process on the Turkish side, while Rubinyan was appointed for Armenia.
Describing the normalization process as “intricate” due to historical nuances and sensitivities, Rubinyan said that upholding agreed issues is vital for this process to establish trust between the two communities.
“Nevertheless, we are continuing our normalization process although our last official meeting was in July 2022,” Rubinyan added and said that three meetings – two in Ankara and one in Tehran a couple of months ago – were held after that.
Asked what is behind the current standstill in ties, Rubinyan said: “I can say that there is no standstill from the Armenian side.”
“If Türkiye and Armenia have political will, other factors should not matter. Furthermore, if we have progress in the Armenia-Türkiye process, this will undoubtedly influence positive developments both in the South Caucasus and the wider region, including the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process.”
Denying that there is any kind of outside pressure to hinder Armenia’s normalized ties with Ankara or Baku, he said that on the contrary, there is huge international support to the processes. “It is Armenia that is pressuring the international community to facilitate and help us achieve this goal.
Armenia strongly desires opening trade routes and connectivity in the region, he continued, reiterating that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recently introduced the “Crossroads of Peace” project to contribute to the region’s prosperity and stability.
“We want to transform our region, the South Caucasus, which is famous for long-standing conflicts to a crossroads of peace. Our position is very simple and is based on the principles of international law. We want to unblock all communications in the region, based on the sovereignty, jurisdiction, equality and reciprocity,” he said and indicated that this is also valid for the planned route that would link the autonomous Nakhchivan exclave of Azerbaijan to the rest of its land.
Rubinyan stressed that Armenia is ready to have the route on its territory as long as Yerevan has full sovereignty and jurisdiction over it. The reason for the lack of progress in establishing such a route is that Baku has not agreed to implement these projects under the mentioned principles, which had been agreed on at different platforms, he continued. “We have a feeling that Azerbaijan does not want to do that and this is unfortunate.”
Following the war in 2020, Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan announced an agreement accepting the construction of new transport communications linking Nakhchivan with the western regions of Azerbaijan.
“The trilateral statement stipulated that all communications in the region should be unblocked, but this did not happen. The trilateral statement has failed because it stipulated many things that did not happen.”
On a possible Russian role for the trade routes, Rubinyan underlined that Baku and especially Yerevan as sovereign states are capable of ensuring the security of such routes in their respective territories. “In fact, we have created a special unit in the national security service, the task of which is providing additional security for the communications that run through our country.”
“There is also huge potential in unblocking the border between Armenia and Türkiye. We have also a railroad link, which has been closed for 31 years now. I see no reason why it should stay blocked.”
On the other side, Rubinyan also touched on the ongoing talks between Baku and Yerevan. Armenia and Azerbaijan have been able to agree on the basic principles for a peace treaty, the special representative said.
“If we do the simple technical job of reflecting these principles in the draft peace treaty then peace is more than achievable very soon. The problem is, for reasons we do not understand, Azerbaijan has been backtracking from these principles. At least that is what we understand because they do not want to include or reflect these principles in the peace treaty,” Rubinyan said. He indicated that these principles included recognition of each other’s territorial integrity based on the Alma Ata Declaration of 1991, which was signed by 12 of the post-Soviet states after gaining their independence. According to the declaration, Armenia has 29,800 square kilometers (11,505 square miles) and Azerbaijan has 86,600 square kilometers, including the Karabakh region.
It was agreed that demarcation and delimitation would be defined based on the declaration, he said further.
“Judging from the reluctance of the Azerbaijani side to reflect these in the peace treaty, we have legitimate concerns that maybe peace is not what they want and they have aggressive intentions,” Rubinyan pointed out, saying that the lack of agreement on borders has the potential to cause tensions and even conflict.
“That is why it is very important for us that Türkiye and Armenia make progress in our normalization process it would positively influence the Armenia-Azerbaijan track.”
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