Azernews.Az

ANKARA – Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has issued a strongly worded message to Armenia, reiterating that Ankara would not mend its ties with the country until the two decade-long Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict is resolved.

"Azerbaijan’s grief is our grief, and Azerbaijan’s joy is our joy," Erdogan was quoted by CNN Turk TV channel as saying in a meeting with local residents in the town of Igdir. "Here, in Igdir, I am stating once again: normalizing our relations with Armenia is impossible as long as the Nagorno Karabakh conflict remains unresolved."

Erdogan noted that Turkey would always stand by Azerbaijan on the Karabakh issue. "No one should expect anything else from us."

20 percent of Azerbaijani territory, including Nagorno Karabakh and seven surrounding regions, has been occupied by Armenian armed forces since a war in the early 1990s.

Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey, Azerbaijan’s ally, have been broken and the border between the two countries has been shut since 1993. Ankara and Yerevan signed reconciliation agreements in October 2009, but their parliamentary approval is stalled due to the ongoing Armenian occupation of Azerbaijan’s territory.