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Turkish officials made it clear at the Antalya Diplomacy Forum that they do not oppose the normalization of relations with Armenia, but again conditioned it with progress in Baku-Yerevan relations, political analyst Suren Surenyants claims.

“These processes have always been interrelated, just now it is openly stated,” the expert told Panorama.am in an interview on Wednesday.

He believes no breakthrough can be expected in Armenian-Turkish relations in the near future apart from technical bilateral meetings.

"Substantial progress in Armenian-Turkish relations can be achieved after several events. The first is the normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, then Armenia should be able to overcome the crisis in relations with Russia, as all regional processes are interconnected. In addition, the statement of EU special envoy Toivo Klaar in Antalya was remarkable. The latter, in fact, made it clear that the path of Armenia's Western integration runs through Turkey, designating the country a regional leader. I know that pro-Westerner figures will disagree with this statement, but it does not change the state of affairs. The recurrent claims of pro-Westerners that Russian influence can be replaced with Western influence are delusional, since a sharp turnaround will lead Armenia not to the West, but to a heavy dependence on Turkey," Surenyants stated.

Responding to the remark that judging by the statements of Turkish and Azerbaijani officials, Ankara and Baku are in no hurry to normalize relations with Yerevan, the analyst said: "They believe they still have an opportunity to extort major concessions from Armenia before the status quo is established. They want to document relations at a time when they can squeeze the most out of Armenia. In the current situation, there can be no good agreement with Azerbaijan for Armenia.”