Nevertheless, Armenia and Turkey are progressing normalization negotiations as the countries hope to achieve the ultimate peace treaty by 2026 after a breakthrough meeting among regional leaders. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan forecasts the signing of an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace treaty in the initial five years of 2026, which will be closely followed by the opening of the borders. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is also placing a bet on his political future by delivering real achievements of peace before the June 2026 parliamentary elections.
Washington summit presents historic diplomatic breakthrough
After the highly-anticipated White House summit on 8 August between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that was hosted by U.S President Donald Trump, expectations that Yerevan and Baku will conclude with a long-awaited peace treaty within the next year are soaring, according to Balkan Caucasus Observatory. Along these lines, the momentum seems to be gathering on a side-by-side basis to normalise the relationship between Armenia and Turkey.
On 12 September, Armenian and Turkish special envoys in the normalisation of relations, Rubin Rubinyan and Serdar Kiliç, were received in Yerevan. It was the sixth such meeting in the office since January 2022 and also the first to be conducted in the Armenian capital. Although a similar high-level visit by a Turkish official was not the first of its kind, the timing of the visit was especially important considering the larger regional peace momentum.
A “Trump Route” is being considered to faciliate the opening of borders
An agreement brokered by the U.S. also has a proposal of a “Trump Route,” a strategic transport corridor between Azerbaijan and its Nakhichevan exclave via Armenia, according to TVP World. The same one-page communique published following the most recent meeting confirmed the continuation of the progress on normalisation, such as restoring the previously inactive Kars-Gyumri railway, the opening of the border to citizens and diplomats of third countries, the development of education exchanges, and the introduction of more direct flights between the states.
Border opening tied to Azerbaijan peace deal
A normalisation between Armenia and Turkey has long been a matter of time in relation to the Armenia-Azerbaijan relations. In 1993, the border of Armenia and Turkey was closed as Armenian forces occupied Kelbajar, among six other regions in the area of Karabakh. Since that time, Ankara has made it very clear that it would not open the border and normalise relations unless Yerevan and Baku did the same.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan told the media, following the Kiliç-Rubinyan meeting, that an Armenia-Azerbaijan treaty, which will be completed in March and initialled in August, will be signed in the first half of 2026. The next thing would be to normalise relations and open the shared border in full. Naturally, Yerevan wants to see the border open earlier, and it is relying on the fact that it will be able to take advantage of new trade routes.
Symbolic gestures create a force towards overall concurrence
Pashinyan made a trip to China in late August using the Azerbaijani airspace and was caught smiling and communicating in a light tone with Aliyev at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit. They were shown with the Turkish First Lady Emine Erdoğan, their wives, Anna Hakobyan and Mehriban Aliyeva. Unprecedented and extensively circulated on the Internet, these images were clearly intended to send positive messages specifically to the societies that had long been accustomed to hostility.
The next few months will be key to the perspectives of peace in the region because Armenia is ready to sign the document at a moment when Azerbaijan also insists on the changes in the Constitution. To Pashinyan, winning would prove his strategy of peace and consolidate his political standing. To the regional leaders, the overlap of the two diplomatic pathways can be a historic groundbreaker, where it would be considered that decades of war are finally over.