VP’s visit marks another milestone in Turkish-Armenian ties

Vice President Cevdet Yılmaz will be in Yerevan, Armenia, on Monday to attend a summit of the European Political Community (EPC). Just another routine event for Yılmaz is another turning point in relations between Türkiye and Armenia. Yılmaz will be the first sitting vice president of Türkiye to visit Armenia, which has had virtually no diplomatic relations with neighboring Türkiye since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Armenia originally invited President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the summit, according to the media reports. It would be the first visit to Yerevan by Erdoğan if the invitation was confirmed. Yet, it appears that normalizing the ties is also based on hierarchy. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made his first visit to Türkiye last year and met Erdoğan. In 2008, Erdoğan’s predecessor, Abdullah Gül, became the first Turkish president to visit Armenia, in a bid to normalize ties, but this process eventually faded. After Azerbaijan’s victory over Armenia in Karabakh and with a peace deal in the works between the two foes, Türkiye joined its Caucasus ally and sought to speed up normalization, in parallel with Yerevan’s overture to Ankara to restore relations.