Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday discussed ties between the two countries as well as regional issues in a phone call, said the country's Communications Directorate.
The normalisation process between Ankara and Yerevan is continuing via steps aimed at launching direct trade between the two countries, Erdogan said.
During the call, Pashinyan also voiced well-wishes to Erdogan for the recent Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha.
Saying that Ankara is working for peace and stability in its region, Erdogan underlined that Türkiye will always support taking steps in this direction.
Steps toward normalisation
Türkiye and Armenia have had no diplomatic or commercial ties since 1993, when Ankara closed its border and severed relations after Armenian forces occupied Azerbaijani territory in and around Karabakh.
The normalisation process was relaunched following the 2020 Karabakh war and formally resumed in 2022, with a series of confidence-building measures including the launch of direct Turkish Airlines flights between Istanbul and Yerevan, a visa facilitation agreement for diplomatic passport holders, and the completion of bureaucratic preparations for direct trade.
Construction at the Alican-Margara border crossing linking Türkiye's Igdir province with Armenia's Armavir region is now around 90 percent complete, while the two sides have also agreed to restore the medieval Ani Bridge along their shared border, a step diplomats describe as both symbolic and concrete.
