In her first publication as a Research Fellow at the RSC, Ms. Anush Grigoryan, co-authored with Richard Giragosian, produced a detailed analysis entitled, “Armenia and Türkiye Weighing Normalization Steps.” The seven-page report assesses the current state of Armenia-Türkiye normalization and the extent to which Azerbaijan continues to shape what Ankara and Yerevan can accomplish on their own.
The authors noted that “the recent positive momentum in Armenian-Azerbaijan diplomacy has only accelerated the opening for Armenia-Türkiye normalization,” though Baku “still holds considerable leverage over Türkiye’s options.” That leverage, they found, holds less firmly on religious matters, where a dispute over Azerbaijan’s school dress code has “pushed the Turkish government to criticize Baku in public.”
On the economic dimension, the report concludes that normalization is, above all, “a question of preparation and sequencing, and not diplomacy alone,” with economic diversification no longer optional for Armenia.
Thus, the paper assesses the political, religious, and economic threads running through Armenia-Türkiye relations, and identifies the extent to which Azerbaijan’s own calculus continues to set the pace of normalization.
Ms. Grigoryan now serves as an analytical contributor to the Center and is an International Relations student at Yerevan State University.