Turkey, Armenia to hold third round of normalisation talks

Ankara, April 29 (IANS): Turkey and Armenia will hold the third round of normalisation talks in the Austrian capital Vienna on May 3, the Foreign Ministry in Ankara announced.

Turkey appointed Ambassador Serdar Kilic as the special representative, while Armenia dispatched Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan for the talks, Xinhua news agency quoted the Minister as saying.

The first meeting between Turkish and Armenian envoys was held in Moscow on January 14 and the second was in Vienna on February 24.

In February, the two neighbours resumed charter flights between Istanbul and Yerevan.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan met on March 12 in Turkish southwestern resort city of Antalya, expressing their willingness to continue to normalise ties.

Turkey and Armenia severed diplomatic ties in 1993 after the former chose to support Azerbaijan when the Caspian country was fighting a war with the latter over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.

In 2020, Armenia lost control of the territories around Nagorno-Karabakh in a war with Azerbaijan.