The prospect of peace in the South Caucasus may finally be within reach. Following the high-profile meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the White House as facilitated by U.S. President Donald Trump on 8 August, hopes are rising that Yerevan and Baku could soon sign a long-anticipated peace treaty. That breakthrough has already been welcomed internationally, sparking renewed movement on the Armenia–Türkiye track as well. Opening the Armenian-Türkiye border has long been a policy objective for successive governments in Yerevan.
It is also considered essential not only for the landlocked and semi-isolated country to sufficiently improve its economy, but also to diversify policy in key areas such as security and energy. Many have argued that Armenia has been too reliant on Russia since independence was declared in 1991 while the belief Moscow would support Armenia militarily in its conflict with neighbouring Azerbaijan evaporated in 2020. As Yerevan and Baku edge closer to signing an already completed peace treaty, there are now hopes for similar between Yerevan and Ankara.
On 12 September, Turkish Special Envoy Serdar Kilic crossed into Armenia to meet his counterpart, Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament Ruben Rubinyan. It was their first meeting since July 2024 and the sixth round of talks since the new process began in 2022. Though their joint communiqué contained little further detail, it reaffirmed commitments to restore the railway between Kars and Gyumri, open land crossings for diplomats and third-country nationals, and expand cooperation in the areas of education and aviation.
For many, this momentum suggests that the border with Türkiye, closed since 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan, might finally reopen. But Ankara quickly tempered expectations. Following the meeting last week, Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan again reiterated that normalization with Armenia would follow only after a peace deal with Baku. He nonetheless announced that such an agreement could come in the first half of next year, suggesting a possible breakthrough in 2026.
Given focus on the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process over the last few years, many have avoided realistically assessing the other. During the last ill-fated attempt to normalise relations with Türkiye in the late 2000s and early 2010s, Ankara insisted that that the two processes were linked. That not only meant the establishment of a historical commission to examine and assess the massacres and deportations of 1915 in the Ottoman Empire, something Armenians and many historians consider to be an act of genocide, but hinted at other requirements too.
In 2008, for example, the Armenian Football Federation removed an image of Mount Ararat, the biblical mountain that Armenians consider to be a national symbol albeit in neighbouring Türkiye where it is known as Mount Ağrı, from their emblem. The opposition demanded that it be changed back which it was the following year. Though many have focused on Baku’s demands for a controversial preamble referencing claims on Karabakh be removed from the constitution, few have considered that Türkiye might have similar demands.
In Armenia’s constitution, the preamble emphasises the “the nation-wide objectives enshrined” in the country’s 1990 Declaration of Independence which refers to both Karabakh and “Western Armenia.” In 2023, Pashinyan notably launched on an effort to elevate the importance of Mount Aragats actually situated in the modern day Republic over Ararat. He warned that including it on Armenia’s coat of arms and has adversely affected the nation’s psyche and was destined to keep Armenia in conflict with its neighbours, namely Azerbaijan and Türkiye.
It also obstructed the establishment of his “Real Armenia” concept to propel the country forwards from the ashes of defeat experienced in 2020. This has become central to Pashinyan’s vision of the future of the country.
To little publicity, a day before Kilic’s arrival in Armenia, the government determined that Mount Ararat would cease to be illustrated on the entry and exit stamps used on the passports of travellers from November. A few days later, the opposition posted the decision on social media, naturally provoking the ire of others in the country. This, they argued, was another concession made by Pashinyan as he seeks to fulfil his post-2021 “peace agenda.” Some others, while lamenting the move, understood why. “Let's finally accept reality and live in that,” wrote one local political scientist.
Moreover, others noted, Ararat had only appeared on the Armenian passport stamps after 2004, the time when then President Kocharyan sought to rely on the country’s diaspora to compensate for a lack of direct foreign investment. For at least 13 years it had not appeared at all, they claimed, posting images of their own passport pages showing stamps from 2004 that did not include Ararat while those in 2006 did.
Now, in contrast, Ankara, Baku, and Washington appear aligned in viewing peace as an attainable goal. Even Moscow, once the main mediator, has been sidelined. True, many remember past disappointments such as the failed 2009 Zurich Protocols but the main reason for that – the occupation of seven regions surrounding Karabakh – is now a thing of the past.
Indeed, the signs are more encouraging than at any time in the past three decades. The Washington meeting has injected new momentum, and symbolic gestures such as the wives of the Armenian, Azerbaijani, and Turkish leaders posing together recently in China are accumulating. Whether this will culminate in treaties and open borders depends on whether all sides can overcome the final obstacles – constitutional amendments in Armenia, agreement on the terms sought by Azerbaijan for traveling through Armenia to its Nakhchivan exclave, and political will in Türkiye.
Though any likely changes required will prove controversial in Armenia, they also nonetheless raise the prospects of normalisation within the next year or two. It will, however, prove painful for many Armenians, demonstrating how actual tangible dividends will have to be visible on the ground as well. But the possibility is there.
source: Onnik James Krikorian is a journalist, photojournalist, and consultant from the U.K. who has covered the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict since 1994. Photo: A photo of passport stamps depicting how Mount Ararat was not used on Armenian entry and exit stamps until at least 2004. In 2006 they were, demonstrating how the mountain was not used for over a decade after independence in 1991. Source: Facebook
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