Vahan Hunanian, a spokesman for Armenia’s Foreign Ministry, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday that “at the moment there is no agreement regarding the next meeting.”
He added that officials in Yerevan “in due time inform the public about scheduled meetings of the special representatives of Armenia and Turkey engaged in the normalization process.”
So far, Armenia’s Ruben Rubinian and Turkey’s Serdar Kilic have met four times since the beginning of this year in a fresh bid to achieve rapprochement between the two neighbors feuding over historical events, including the Ottoman-era genocide of Armenians denied by Turkey.
The first meeting between the two envoys took place in January in Moscow, Russia, with the three subsequent meetings taking place in Vienna, Austria.
The unnamed high-ranking Turkish diplomat told the Turkish media that Ankara insists that the next rounds of talks take place not in third countries, but in Armenia and Turkey, but for this, the diplomat said, a number of clear steps must be taken.
After all meetings that have taken place between Rubinian and Kilic the parties emphasized their readiness to go for a full settlement of relations without preconditions.
Following their latest round of talks on July 1 the two envoys announced agreements on enabling the crossing of the land border between Armenia and Turkey by third-country citizens as well as on commencing direct air cargo trade between the two countries.
The official who talked to the Turkish media also noted that the current process is different from the 2009 negotiations, but he said that “one can talk about taking clear steps like signing a document when there is a certain maturity in the process.” According to him, normalization should be carried forward with steps aimed at increasing confidence.