Azerbaijani envoy suggests Ankara waiting on Baku before opening Armenia border

Azerbaijan has implicitly indicated that it is influencing the Turkish government to hold off on opening Turkey's border with Armenia.

“The Armenian constitution contains territorial claims against Azerbaijan. After the June 7 election, they will change the constitution, then they will hold a referendum. After the territorial claims are eliminated, the Azerbaijan-Armenia normalization deal, initialed in the US, will be signed. After that, the Armenia-Turkey and Armenia-Azerbaijan borders will be opened,” Rashad Mammadov, Baku’s ambassador to Turkey, told theTurkish publication Cumhuriyet on Monday.

The remarks raised questions among many Turkish intellectuals and social media users about whether Baku has greater influence over Ankara's foreign policy than it deserves to.

Mammadov also commented on Baku's fuel supplies to Armenia launched late last year.

“We are now playing a role in Armenia's energy security. We are supplying them with oil and fuel. We are facilitating the transportation of their wheat and other products through Azerbaijan, from Kazakhstan and Russia. And we are telling them that if there is peace, their security will also be better,” he said.

Speaking with Turkish media last month, Armenia's parliamentary speaker Alen Simonyan accused Azerbaijan of hindering normalization efforts between Yerevan and Ankara.

“[Azerbaijan] is negotiating with us, and at the same time, it is not allowing Turkey to negotiate with us. This is a strange situation. Turkey seems to be a prisoner of these relations,” Simonyan said.

“Initially, they told us that the border would not be opened until the Nagorno-Karabakh issue was resolved. Then they declared it was resolved. Then they brought up the Armenia–Azerbaijan normalization deal. We negotiated the agreement; it was a difficult and lengthy process, but we finished it, met to initial it, shook hands, and it still didn’t work out,” Simonyan said.