News - Toivo Klaar hopes Armenia, Turkey special representatives on normalization of bilateral relations will meet soon

The European Union (EU) supports the Armenia-Turkey process, expressing hope that the special representatives of the two countries will meet in the near future. Toivo Klaar, the EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus and the Crisis in Georgia, told this to the RFE/RL Armenian Service. Klaar noted that having communicated with both Ruben Rubinyan—deputy speaker of the Armenian parliament and special representative of Armenia in the process of normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations—and Serdar Kilic—the special representative of Turkey in the aforesaid process, he has heard interest from both sides in making progress in this regard. And the EU certainly supports it Klaar added, noting that therefore he again hopes that this process will really go forward in the near future and give results for Armenia, for Turkey, and for the region. The Armenian and Turkish special representatives have had four official meetings on the matter of normalization of Armenia-Turkey relations, and the last one in July 2022 in Vienna. At that meeting, the parties agreed to open the Armenian-Turkish land border for citizens of third countries in the shortest possible time. However, this border was opened only once during this period, for the trucks with which the Armenian government sent humanitarian aid to the victims of the devastating earthquake in Turkey last year. No other visible progress in Armenian-Turkish relations has been recorded since 2022.