News of Pashinian’s upcoming trip was first reported by Armenian media late last week. Deputy foreign ministers of Turkey and Armenia met in Ankara on Monday in apparent preparation for it.
“The visit will be historic,” Simonian told reporters. He said it will be part of the Armenian government’s “meaningful steps” designed to eliminate the risk of another war with Azerbaijan.
Fears of such a war have been stoked by the outbreak of neighboring Iran’s military conflict with Israel. Armenian opposition politicians and pundits say that Azerbaijan may take advantage of it to invade Armenia in a bid to open a land corridor to its Nakhichevan exclave. Simonian insisted that the risk of an Azerbaijani attack is “minimal” at present.
The so-called “Zangezur corridor” sought by Baku as well as Ankara but strongly opposed by Tehran would pass through Syunik, the only Armenian region bordering Iran. Iranian leaders have repeatedly warned against attempts to strip Iran of its common border with Armenia.
Erdogan again publicly backed Azerbaijan’s demands for the corridor after wrapping up a fresh visit to Azerbaijan late last month. He spoke with Pashinian by phone on June 5.
Albania - Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan gestures to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian at a European summit in Tirana, May 16, 2025.
In its readout of the call, Erdogan’s office indicated Turkey’s continuing linkage between the normalization of its relations with Armenia and Yerevan’s fulfillment of the Azerbaijani demands. Ankara stuck to its unconditional support for Baku even after Pashinian’s recent statements which many in Armenia and its worldwide Diaspora believe questioned the 1915 Armenian genocide in Ottoman Turkey.
Pashinian declared in January that Armenians should “understand what happened” in 1915 and what prompted the subsequent campaign for international recognition of the slaughter of some 1.5 million Armenians as genocide. Armenian historians, opposition figures and retired diplomats expressed outrage at the statement, saying that Pashinian cast doubt on the fact of the genocide. Some of them claimed that this is part of his efforts to cozy up to Turkey, which continues to deny a deliberate government effort to exterminate the Armenian population of the Ottoman Empire.
In March, Pashinian told visiting Turkish journalists his government will not strive get more countries and international bodies to recognize the genocide. He questioned the wisdom of genocide resolutions already adopted by over three dozen countries, including the United States.