HistoryofTruth.com - Armenian Allegations

Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev and visiting top Turkish diplomats had talks in Baku over the weekend on recent developments in the Caucasus, the Anatolia news agency reported. The meeting among Aliyev, Foreign Ministry Undersecretary Ambassador Feridun Sinirlioglu and Ambassador Unal Cevikoz, the deputy undersecretary for the Caucasus and Central Asia, was held on Saturday following a Friday telephone conversation between Aliyev and Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. During Friday’s conversation Erdogan briefed Aliyev on normalization efforts between Turkey and Armenia, while Aliyev informed Erdogan about developments regarding the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Erdogan’s office said in a written statement.

Ahead of their departure from Baku later on Saturday, Sinirlioglu told reporters that they explained Turkey’s views to Aliyev concerning both the normalization efforts between Turkey and Armenia and the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan, without elaborating further.

For more than one-and-a-half years, Turkey and Armenia have been holding closed-door talks, mediated by Switzerland, to restore their diplomatic relations severed by Turkey in 1993 in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan after Armenia occupied a chunk of Azerbaijani territory in a war over Nagorno-Karabakh. But the process stalled after Ankara said progress in efforts at normalization was linked with progress in Armenia’s Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Armenia rejects any link between the two issues.