President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s chief adviser Akif Çağatay Kılıç on Wednesday received Igor Khovayev, Moscow’s special representative for the normalization process between Azerbaijan and Armenia
Kılıç said on the social media platform NSosyal that he received Khovayev along with the Russian delegation at the Presidential Complex in the capital Ankara.
The meeting addressed the bilateral relations between Ankara and Moscow, the ongoing Baku-Yerevan normalization process aimed at establishing lasting peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the latest developments in the South Caucasus, he noted.
On Aug. 8, 2025, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in Washington under U.S. mediation and signed a joint declaration reaffirming their commitment to ending decades of conflict. On the same occasion, the foreign ministers of both countries initialed a peace agreement, underscoring a shared determination to advance toward full normalization.
Türkiye and Armenia have held five rounds of normalization talks in recent years, seeking to restore diplomatic ties and reopen borders closed since the early 1990s.
The two countries share a complex history. Armenia, for a long time, has accused Türkiye, or rather, the Ottoman Empire, of committing "genocide" against the Armenian population in the country during World War I. Türkiye has repeatedly denied the claims, although it has acknowledged a high number of deaths among Armenians due to isolated incidents and diseases.
Borders have remained closed since 1993 following Armenia’s illegal occupation of the Azerbaijani territory of Karabakh. Relations began to thaw after the 2020 Karabakh war, with both sides appointing special envoys to pursue normalization talks and negotiating the reopening of their land border. So far, limited agreements have allowed third-country citizens and diplomats to cross, but a full reopening remains elusive.
Despite the hurdles, there have been tentative gestures toward cooperation. The Margara border crossing has been used twice in recent years for humanitarian purposes: in February 2023 to deliver Armenian aid trucks following a devastating earthquake in southeastern Türkiye, and in March 2024 for humanitarian aid shipments to Syria via Türkiye. Armenia has also upgraded the crossing in anticipation of future use.
