Mirzoyan has participated in the last four conferences held in the Turkish resort city of Antalya, speaking during panel discussions and holding bilateral meetings with his Turkish and Azerbaijani counterparts.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry declined to comment on Tuesday on his decision to skip the upcoming Antalya Diplomacy Forum. According to the forum’s official website, one of Mirzoyan’s deputies, Vahan Kostanian, will be its sole Armenian participant this time around.

Ruben Rubinian, a parliament vice-speaker who has represented Yerevan in normalization talks with Ankara, confirmed that he too will not travel to Antalya later this week. He gave no reason for his absence.

“Why should I go there every time?” Rubinian told journalists.

Rubinian and Turkish envoy Serdar Kilic held several rounds of negotiations that resulted in the signing in 2022 of two bilateral agreements. One of those agreements calls for the opening of the Turkish-Armenian border for Armenian and Turkish diplomatic passport holders as well as citizens of third countries. Ankara has been reluctant to implement it so far. It has for decades made the normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations conditional on a resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict acceptable to Azerbaijan.

Turkish media reported late last year that Ankara is planning to partially open the border in March, ahead of Armenia’s parliamentary elections slated for June. Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan mentioned the elections and praised Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in that context in January.

Armenian opposition leaders responded by accusing the Turkish government of meddling in Armenia’s internal affairs. Pashinian’s political allies insisted that Fidan did not endorse the Armenian leader.

Even before Fidan’s statement, Pashinian’s political opponents claimed that Turkey and Azerbaijan will go to great lengths to help his Civil Contract party win the polls. They have for years said that Pashinian is making unilateral concessions to the two Turkic allies in hopes of clinging to power. The premier’s political team denies this.

Gegham Manukian, an Armenian opposition lawmaker, claimed Pashinian’s government has finally realized that its high-level participation in the Antalya forum is “meaningless” in the absence of Turkey’s tangible “steps to end its hostile actions against Armenia.”

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