Relations with the South Caucasus States

Caucasus is a geographic region between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea, and mainly occupied by Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia (South Caucasus), and parts of Southern Russia (North Caucasus).

Some important agreements towards normalisation of relations with the South Caucasus States are provided here.

Turkey and Armenia

2018, 1 March - Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan tells a National Security Council (NSC) meeting that the Protocols are annulled.

"As a result of discussions, President Serzh Sargsyan signed a decree and a national security council approved a procedure of annulling protocols which have been signed on October 10, 2009," the presidency press service said in a statement.

2013 - BRIEFING TURKEY-ARMENIA RELATIONS, DIRECTORATE-GENERAL FOR EXTERNAL POLICIES OF THE UNION DIRECTORATE B POLICYDEPARTMENT, European Parliament.

POLICY RECOMMENDATIONS are proposed for following directions: I. Economics, Trade & Transport; II. Political Cooperation; III. National Security, and IV. People-to-people contacts and cooperation

2010, 22 April - President Serzh Sargsyan Announces Suspension of Protocols. President made a televised announcement on the process of normalization between Armenia and Turkey. The president said that Turkey was not ready for the normalization process, that the preconditions set forth by Turkey were unacceptable, and that “the pointless efforts of making the dialogue between Armenia and Turkey an end in itself” were also unacceptable.

2009, 10 October - The Zurich Protocols refer to two bilateral protocols signed by Armenia and Turkey that envisioned starting the process of normalizing relations between the two countries. The foreign ministers, Ahmet Davutoğlu for Turkey and Eduard Nalbandyan for Armenia, signed in Zurich the two protocols in a ceremony attended also by then U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, French Minister of Foreign Affairs Bernard Kouchner and Foreign Minister of Russia Sergey Lavrov.

2009, 22 April - The Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia, the Republic of Turkey and the Swiss Federal Department of Foreign Affairs issued a joined statement announcing that a road-map of normalizing relations has been identified. The statement has been posted on the websites of Armenia’s and Turkey’s Foreign Ministries.

The statement reads:

“Turkey and Armenia, together with Switzerland as mediator, have been working intensively with a view to normalizing their bilateral relations and developing them in a spirit of good-neighborliness, and mutual respect, and thus to promoting peace, security and stability in the whole region.

“The two parties have achieved tangible progress and mutual understanding in this process and they have agreed on a comprehensive framework for the normalization of their bilateral relations in a mutually satisfactory manner. In this context, a road-map has been identified.

“This agreed basis provides a positive prospect for the on-going process”.

Suggested APA citation of this page:

Tsikhistavi-Khutsishvili, N. (Ed.). (2014). Conflict Resolution and Peacebuilding Historical Archive of Georgia by the International Center on Conflict and Negotiation (ICCN). Retrieved /month, date, year/ from https://iccn.ge/index.php?article_id=399&clang=1