“We are not a part nor a side in the Nagorno talks, but we would welcome any progress towards a comprehensive solution between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” a Turkish government official in Ankara said, Reuters reads.

Armenia and Turkey, at loggerheads since the World War One mass killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks, plan to sign a protocol in Zurich committing them to re-establish diplomatic ties and reopen their common border. In the latest diplomatic round, two days before the Swiss ceremony, the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will hold new talks on Karabakh in Moldova's capital Chisinau on Thursday.

“There are intensified efforts … to make sure that at some point, relatively soon, there will be something from the Karabakh process that could help the Turkish-Armenian process move forward,” a senior European diplomat told Reuters. But, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding the talks, the European diplomat added that he did not expect any major announcement in Moldova, saying: “I think it's going to take longer than that.”

The senior European diplomat, asked about the chances of Turkey opening the border as planned by year-end, without progress on Nagorno-Karabakh, replied: “Fairly slim.”

Reuters also amplifies the current situation in Armenia-Turkey relations.

Armenia and Turkey are due to sign historic accords ending a century of hostility on Saturday but a simmering territorial dispute could yet complicate their plans, diplomats said.

Officially, the Azeri-Armenia talks on Karabakh are separate from the Turkey-Armenia rapprochement. In reality they are closely linked because Turkey has close cultural ties with Muslim Azerbaijan and closed its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan over the Karabakh war.