Since there was an agreement on a meeting between the special representatives of Armenia and Turkey, it took place; but that meeting was formal, generally ceremonial, and did not resolve any issues. Armenian turkologist Andranik Ispiryan stated this in an interview with Armenian News-NEWS.am.
"They just agreed to open the border for citizens of third countries and diplomatic passport holders.
Why nothing happened during these 1.5 years? Since the Russian-Ukrainian war mixed up the playing cards, created new realities in the region to the detriment of Russia, to the detriment of Armenia, and in favor of the Turkey-Azerbaijan tandem. Seeing that Azerbaijan can take advantage of this situation, Azerbaijan can take advantage of the weakening of Russia's influence in the region, also taking into account the Armenian authorities’ behavior and the diplomatic steps towards the West and the more negative attitude towards Russia, Turkey simply froze the formal process of normalization of relations [with Armenia]. During that freezing, events took place on the part of Azerbaijan, naturally, with Turkey, and in some cases—agreed also with Russia.
We already know that a few days before the [Azerbaijani] siege of Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)], the war and the deportation of Artsakh Armenians after that, the meeting between the representatives of the countries known to us had taken place a few days before that. That is, Turkey suspended contacts with Armenia in the direction of the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, as the situation was already different," said Ispiryan.
According to him, there was another need for Turkey. Armenia was weak, Russia's influence was weak, and the maximum should have been obtained in that regard.
"Turkey and Azerbaijan used this situation to solve the Artsakh issue in their favor once and for all. After the Artsakh issue was resolved in their favor, the situation in the region is different.
In this situation, Turkey getting active in the matter of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations and the statement of the EU representative for the [South] Caucasus prove that Turkey has already reached an agreement with the West in order to restart the process, at least formally for itself, thereby increasing the influence, pressure on Armenia, to push Russia out from the region as much as possible. That is, Turkey's recent activeness is aimed at this," said the turkologist.
Referring to the fact that the EU's special representative for the South Caucasus announced at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum in Turkey that the latter can be of crucial importance in the process of normalizing Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, and also said that Turkey has the status of a leading power in the South Caucasus, Ispiryan said: "It showed that the West sees the South Caucasus as an area of Turkish influence in the future.
They give Turkey a mandate to dominate this region. We should not expect that if Russia's influence here weakens, we will see the influence of some Western countries; it will be in the form of an increase in Turkey's influence."
