There is no Armenia on the Turkish political map of the Caucasus. Mitat Çelikpala, Head of the Department of International Relations at Kadir Has University in Istanbul, Turkey, on Friday stated this at the Caucasus 2019 conference. In his words, this is due to the absence of relations between Yerevan and Ankara.

Çelikpala noted that there is no longer an exchange of letters between the leaders of the two countries ever since Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power in Armenia, whereas letters were exchanged during the reign of the preceding authorities, and therefore Turkish political circles still do not know very well how the processes of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations will be developed.

The authoritarian situation in the Caucasus also hampers the process of normalization of these relations, the expert added. And, in his view, under such conditions, Turkey has to “play” to buy time so as to achieve its objectives, including in relations with Armenia.