He noted that Ankara will continue “coordinated work with our Azerbaijani brothers” to achieve permanent peace.
“Our wish is to receive good news as soon as possible without giving an opportunity to the centers trying to sabotage the process,” the Turkish president said, as quoted by Turkey’s Anadolu news agency. He did not specify which centers or what kind of sabotage he meant.
Recalling that Turkey hosted a meeting on October 18 in Istanbul attended by the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan, Armenia, Iran, and Russia, Erdogan emphasized that this regional cooperation platform, which is known as “3+3” and was originally designed also to include Georgia, which has so far refused to engage, is now “meeting an important need.”
“We want to institutionalize this mechanism in the upcoming period. Following the 44-day war [in Karabakh], a unique opportunity was created for permanent peace in the South Caucasus… Winds of peace are now blowing in this region, which was once associated with pain, occupation and conflict,” the Turkish leader said.
Yerevan and Baku have stated that they have so far reached agreement on about 80 percent of their draft peace treaty. In recent weeks official Yerevan has repeatedly suggested signing the deal with what has already been agreed upon and working on the remaining issues later, but Baku has opposed this initiative. Armenia has also offered a mechanism for mutual control of weapons and suggested signing a non-aggression pact, but Azerbaijan has not responded to these proposals.
Turkey, for its part, has stated on several occasions that normalization with Armenia depends on progress in the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations.
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