Are frosty relations between Turkey and Armenia thawing?

Experts say the longtime foes could benefit economically and geopolitically if they follow up on pledges towards normalisation.

Istanbul, Turkey – Longtime foes Armenia and Turkey have signalled that they are willing to move towards restoring diplomatic relations, almost four decades after borders between the two neighbouring countries were closed. In mid-August, Armenia’s recently re-elected Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that he was ready for reconciliation with Turkey “without preconditions”, while Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said this past weekend that Ankara could work towards gradual normalisation if Yerevan “declared its readiness to move in this direction”. Diplomatic relations between the two countries, already haunted by the mass killing of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during World War I, were severed in 1993 following the first Nagorno-Karabakh war.