Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has been invited to attend a European Political Community summit in Armenia on May 4, a meeting that comes days after Turkey and Armenia held talks on reopening a rail link between the two countries.
The summit in Yerevan will be co-chaired by European Council President António Costa and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan under the theme “Building the Future: Unity and Stability in Europe.” The European Council says leaders will discuss democratic resilience, connectivity, economic security and energy security.
Turkey has not announced whether Erdoğan will attend. The European Council says 48 heads of state and government have been invited, including those of the 27 European Union member states, Turkey, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, the United Kingdom and several Balkan and non-EU European countries.
A visit by Erdoğan to Yerevan would carry weight because Turkey and Armenia have no formal diplomatic relations and their land border has been closed since the 1990s. Relations have long been strained by Turkey’s alliance with Azerbaijan and by the dispute over the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which many countries recognize as genocide. Turkey rejects the genocide label.
The invitation also comes during renewed steps toward normalization. On Tuesday Turkish and Armenian officials met in the eastern Turkish province of Kars as part of a joint working group on rehabilitating and operating the Kars-Gyumri railway. The Turkish Foreign Ministry said the sides emphasized the need for the railway to begin operating soon to improve regional transport links.
The railway issue is one of the most concrete steps in the slow normalization process between the neighbors. Ankara and Yerevan agreed in 2021 to appoint special envoys to work toward restoring ties and reopening the border. In December 2025 they also agreed to simplify visa procedures for holders of diplomatic, special and service passports, saying they remained committed to full normalization without preconditions.
The Yerevan meeting will be the eighth summit of the European Political Community, a forum launched in 2022 after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine to bring together European Union and non-EU leaders for political coordination. The platform does not issue binding decisions, but it gives leaders space for bilateral and multilateral meetings.
Erdoğan attended the first European Political Community summit in Prague in October 2022, the Budapest summit in November 2024 and the Tirana summit in May 2025.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is expected to attend as a guest, a move Costa described as part of a wider effort to defend peace, shared prosperity and multilateralism.
The European Political Community meeting will be followed by the first EU-Armenia summit on May 4 and 5, also in Yerevan. Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will represent the European Union, while Pashinyan will represent Armenia.
The EU has deepened ties with Armenia as Yerevan has sought closer relations with the West following its rift with Russia over security. Armenia adopted a law in 2025 launching a process aimed at closer integration with the EU, though Pashinyan has said any eventual membership would take time and require a referendum.
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