Ankara Just Endorsed Pashinyan for the June Elections
“We sincerely support his constructive role,” Turkey’s Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Thursday said at a press conference referring to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in response to a question about the upcoming elections in Armenia, slated to take place in June.
“As you know, elections will be held in Armenia in early June. This will be an important step. But we see that Mr. Pashinyan is currently leading in public opinion polls. We sincerely support his constructive role in this matter. This approach—the desire—must be maintained,” Hakan Fidan said, according to a report by Turkey’s KanalT.
Interestingly, Hakan also used the term “Zangezur Corridor” to describe a 27-mile stretch of road in Armenia’s Syunik Province, which, based on an agreement signed in Washington last year, will provide unfettered access from Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan. Following the August 8 meeting in Washington, that road will be called the Trump Road for International Peace and Prosperity—known as TRIPP.
Pashinyan and other Yerevan officials have rejected the term, which continues to be used by Turkish and Azerbaijani officials. The term was coined by President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan when he introduced his scheme to claim a extraterritorial passage to Nakhichevan, threatening Armenia if it did not oblige with its demands.
A newly-signed document between Armenia and the United States stipulates that the road eventually will be operated by relevant customs services of Armenia, ensuring the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Hakan said at the press conference that in a broader strategic context, the so-called “Zangezur Corridor” “is important also in the regional context, in particular for joining Nakhichevan with mainland Azerbaijan.”
He said the corridor will also “be useful for Turkey, as it enables it to have direct access to the Turkic world and Central Asia through this route,” advancing the long-held pan-Turkic ideology.
Hakan also said that he had a two-hour-long discussion with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhun Bayramov on the text of the TRIPP implantation agreement signed between Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Secretary of State Marco Rubio in Washington earlier this week.
“When the Armenian foreign minister was in America, a document was published. It is called a ‘route,’ referring to what we call the ‘Zangezur Corridor,’” Fidan said, again emphasizing the term that suggests territorial claims from Armenia.
At the moment, there are some technical issues related to it [the road.],” Fidan added, without elaborating on details.
“We have studied this document very carefully. Late yesterday, I spoke with my esteemed [Azerbaijani] colleague Jeyhun Bayramov for about two hours, discussing ‘what is written in this document and how they [i.e. Azerbaijan] interpret it,’ because their point of view is important. Also, we have informed our president about this,” Fidan explained.
“We want the agreement already initialed between Azerbaijan and Armenia to be confirmed once and for all by signature, and the normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia to be implemented as soon as possible, so that we can continue our path toward stability and prosperity in the region. Currently, the political leaderships of Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Turkey share this desire,” Fidan said.
“Armenia still has a few things left to do,” Fidan emphasized.
https://asbarez.com/did-ankara-just-endorse-pashinyan-for-the-june-elections/?fbclid=IwY2xjawPWwLNleHRuA2FlbQIxMQBzcnRjBmFwcF9pZBAyMjIwMzkxNzg4MjAwODkyAAEeoJHABTFGDd6q-rfqESou8jVEl9vXc-PpoFPvyX-ItGHAXlSNZwt8DxwoNzQ_aem_ori-S3N0HJEbUR_4tf3guw
