The Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Turkey held a joint news conference in the Turkish capital, Ankara.

At the beginning of his remark, Turkish FM Mevlut Cavusoglu thanked his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan for expressing solidarity with and condolences to Turkey immediately after last week’s devastating earthquake, and recalled that Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan had a phone conversation and extended his condolences.

"Armenia extended a friendly hand to us in these difficult days. Armenia also sent humanitarian aid during the 1999 earthquake [in Turkey]. Unfortunately, Armenia is also in the earthquake zone. The Spitak [town] earthquake of 1988 is still in our memory, as a large number of people died. After that earthquake, we sent aid to Armenia through the Alican border. And it was through that border that Armenia sent its aid to Turkey a few days ago," Cavusoglu said.

He emphasized that the process of normalization of relations in the South Caucasus continues.

"We believe that today our cooperation in the humanitarian sphere will be a support for this process. The progress to be made in the process of normalization of Armenia’s relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan will ensure peace and prosperity in our region.

We talked with my colleague Ararat Mirzoyan about the steps to be taken in the process of normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey, and we also received information from him about the comprehensive peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

I specifically want to say from here that if these three countries take sincere steps, we will establish permanent peace in the South Caucasus; peace in this region is extremely important for economic prosperity," said the Turkish FM.