Armenia ready to normalize ties with Turkey, says Pashinyan

YEREVAN

Armenia is ready to normalize its ties with Turkey, the country’s Prime Minister Nicol Pashinyan has said.

“We were in the past also ready to improve relations with Turkey without any precondition, and we are now ready too to create a mutual confidence between Ankara and Yerevan and continue our relations without preconditions,” he said on Aug. 18 during a speech on TV.

Armenia is also willing to restart the negotiating process at the highest level to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, Pashinyan said at a government meeting, TASS reported.

“The OSCE Minsk Group has repeatedly said that the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiating process should be resumed in full. We welcome these statements and this position and are ready to participate in the talks at the highest level,” he said.

Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party won an early parliamentary election in June, and he was reappointed as the prime minister.

Pashinyan called the early election after months of protests demanding his resignation because of a November peace deal he signed to end six weeks of fighting with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

During the 44-day conflict, Azerbaijan liberated several cities and nearly 300 settlements and villages from Armenia’s nearly three-decade occupation.