Turkey and Armenia's presidents met for the first time in person after both nations decided to mend fences in their long-standing rivalry.
On the eve of a summit between the leaders of 44 nations, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in Prague on Thursday. Their goal was to establish the "European Political Community," which aims to increase security and economic prosperity throughout Europe.
In addition to the three leaders, Ilham Aliyev, the president of Azerbaijan, was present. It wasn't immediately clear what they talked about.
A decade of animosity between Turkey and Armenia, who have no diplomatic ties, will be put to rest through talks to reopen their shared border, it was decided last year.
Special envoys appointed by the two countries have held four rounds of talks since then.
Their discussions have resulted in an agreement to resume charter flights between Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, and the Armenian capital of Yerevan.
Azerbaijan
Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan, shut down its border with Armenia in 1993 in a show of solidarity with Baku, which was locked in a conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.In 2020, Turkey strongly backed Azerbaijan in the six-week conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh, which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of the region.
Turkey and Armenia also have a more than century-old hostility over the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians in massacres, deportations and forced marches that began in 1915 in Ottoman Turkey.
It is Ankara and Yerevan’s second attempt at reconciliation. Turkey and Armenia reached an agreement in 2009 to establish formal relations and to open their border, but the agreement was never ratified because of strong opposition from Azerbaijan.
Last month, Armenia and Azerbaijan negotiated a ceasefire to end a flare-up of fighting that killed 155 soldiers from both sides.