Thursday’s informal summit of the leaders of Turkey, Armenia, and Azerbaijan was the first time Turkey and Armenia have spoken at a high level since their efforts to repair their decades-old enmity culminated late last year.
Prior to the Prague conference, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan spoke with Prime Ministers of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, and Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.
The three presidents may be seen seated together at a tiny table in a photo released by the Turkish presidency.
There are currently no known specifics of what the leaders talked on at their casual meeting today.
Turkey and Armenia held their first round of negotiations in more than a decade in January of last year. The talks were hailed as “pleasant and constructive,” a sign of mending fences and reopening the two nations’ borders.
There have been no diplomatic or commercial relations between Ankara and Armenia since the 1990s. The latest initiative is the first attempt to restore relations since a peace agreement was reached between the two countries in 2009, which was not ratified by the two countries.
Tensions flared up during a war in 2020 over the Nagorno-Karabakh region between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Turkey accused ethnic Armenian forces of occupying Azerbaijan’s land, but later called for rapprochement as it sought to increase its regional influence. .
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