Turkish, Armenian envoys meet to end chilly relations

Special envoys from Turkey and Armenia met in Moscow on Friday for a first round of meetings aimed at ending decades of bitterness between their countries and establishing diplomatic ties. Both countries said the meeting was conducted in a “positive and constructive atmosphere”.

Although Turkey was among the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the two neighbors share a bitter relationship and have no diplomatic ties, AP reported.

Both countries hope that the talks will bolster peace efforts for the Caucasus region and lead to the reopening of their border to encourage trade and boost economic ties. Charter flights between Yerevan and Istanbul are expected to resume next month.

The Turkish and Armenian foreign ministries said in separate statements that their special representatives “exchanged their preliminary views regarding the normalization process”.

They said the two sides would continue with their negotiations “without preconditions,” adding that the date and venue of their second meeting would be decided later.

Turkey and Armenia have a more than century-old hostility over the deaths of an estimated “1.5 million Armenians” in massacres, deportations and forced marches that began in 1915 in Ottoman Turkey.

Historians widely view the event as genocide. Turkey vehemently rejects the label, conceding that many died in that era, but insisting that the death toll is inflated and the deaths resulted from civil unrest.