Turkey to Meet Armenia to Resolve Conflict in Russian Backyard
- U.S.-sought talks could curtail Russia’s clout in own backyard
- Ottoman-era atrocities remain source of bitter enmity
Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Photographer: Adem Altan/AFP/Getty ImagesThis article is for subscribers only.
Longtime foes Turkey and Armenia will start new talks next week in Moscow to normalize relations and open the last Cold War-era closed border, a U.S. and European Union-backed goal that could curtail Russia’s clout in its backyard.
The Jan. 14 meeting comes more than two months after President Joe Biden urged Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at a meeting in Rome to work toward establishing diplomatic ties with landlocked Armenia and opening the countries’ shared border, according to previous comments by a senior Turkish official. Turkey shut the frontier in 1993 in solidarity with its ally Azerbaijan, which was fighting a war with Armenia over the contested territory of Nagorno-Karabakh.