Despite encouragement by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to not link Turkey’s rapprochement with Armenia to settlement of the Azerbaijan-Karabakh issue during a meeting with Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan last week, the Turkish premiere appears to have dismissed the Russian statesman’s advice.

“Since Nagorno-Karabakh and Turkish-Armenian relations are complex issues, I do not think they should be addressed in one package,” Putin said in a news conference during Erdogan’s visit.

But on his way back to Ankara, Erdogan told reporters onboard the state flight that:

“No matter what people think, the issue of the Armenian-Turkish relations is mutually connected with the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. We have repeatedly announced that the improvement of the Armenian-Turkish relations depends on the settlement of the Karabakh issue,” said the Turkish prime minister on January 15, at the press conference.

“If Yerevan is really eager to improve its relations with us, it must first get out of the occupied territories. The establishment of our relations is possible only in this case,” Erdogan stressed.

Currently Turkey constantly declares that it will not ratify the foreign-policy protocols and will not open the border “unless Armenia gets out of the occupied territories.” However, in Armenia these statements are considered to be targeted at domestic consumption in Turkey, which according to political expert Yervand Bozoyan, is simply amusing.

“They (the statements made by Turkey) are not made for domestic consumption, and I am sure that the Armenian authorities, while signing those protocols, clearly understood that they were caught in a trap. And now it is very hard to get out of it. If Armenia decides to quit the process, then it will weaken its positions, because, for example, in the future Armenia, and not Turkey, will be blamed for closed borders,” Bozoyan told ArmeniaNow.

Richard Giragosian drector of Armenian Center for National and International Studies (ACNIS) says aside from the Turkish rhetoric and demands for concessions form Armenia over Karabagh, the Armenian position on the course of its diplomacy with Turkey remains unchanged.

“Turkey is now in danger of triggering a new crisis of confidence, where all great powers will only see Turkey as unreliable and insincere if Ankara fails to meet its obligations to Yerevan,” says Giragosian. “Clearly, if Turkey fails this test with Armenia, it will not only make any future efforts at normalizing relations much more difficult, it may actually trigger a shift in Armenian policy, to one with clear and strong preconditions this time imposing new demands on Turkey. In such a case, the international community will most likely only support Armenia, in terms of genocide recognition and pushing Turkey further to face the legacy of its genocidal past, with all the legal and diplomatic implications that it infers on Turkey.”