The Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian Presidents will hold a regular meeting late this January, Today’s Zaman reports, referring to a high-ranking Turkish diplomat.

Any joint declaration, either verbally or in written form, to be released after the meeting in Russia that will clearly shows the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides have full consent over the revised Madrid Principles will mark a milestone. It will give a freer hand to Turkey for maintaining faster progress through ongoing efforts to normalize the situation in the South Caucasus, the source said.

Ankara, which last year agreed with Yerevan to establish diplomatic relations and reopen the common border, overcoming century-long hostility stemming from the killing of Anatolian Armenians during World War I, insists on seeing improvement towards a resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in parallel with its efforts to normalize relations with Yerevan, the source reports.

Ankara hopes that recent diplomatic mobility in the South Caucasus will eventually lead to progress in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan and will enable Turkey to pass a so-called threshold to move ahead in ongoing efforts to normalize its ties with Armenia.

T.P.