Armenia 'ready' to establish diplomatic ties with Turkey

Countries at odds over several issues, mainly the 1.5 million people Armenia says were killed in genocide by Ottoman Turkish forces in 1915

The foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey, Ararat Mirzoyan (L) and Mevlut Cavusoglu, meet on the sidelines of the Antalya Diplomacy Forum. AP

Armenia is ready to establish diplomatic relations and open its border with Turkey, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan told the Turkish state-run Anadolu news agency on Tuesday.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said last week he had held "productive and constructive" talks with Mr Mirzoyan in a bid to mend ties after decades of animosity. Turkey has had no diplomatic or commercial ties with Armenia since the 1990s.

"Generally, the population of Armenia wants to normalise relations," Mr Mirzoyan said in a written interview with Anadolu after participating in the Antalya Diplomacy Forum, where he discussed the two countries' normalisation efforts with his Mr Cavusoglu.

The countries have strong differences on a variety of issues, chiefly the 1.5 million people Armenia says were killed in a genocide by Ottoman Turkish forces in 1915.

Turkey denies that those actions constituted a genocide but accepts that many Armenians living in the Ottoman Empire were killed in clashes with forces in the First World War.

Turkey also backed its ally Azerbaijan against ethnic Armenian forces in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh conflict but has since taken a softer position, encouraging both sides to come to the negotiating table.

As part of the normalisation process, Turkey and Armenia last month resumed commercial charter flights between Istanbul and Yerevan after a two-year hiatus. Talks have been held every month in 2022 in an effort to revive a 2009 peace accord, which was never ratified.