Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Tuesday, October 26 said Armenia should mend ties with Azerbaijan if it wants better relations with Ankara, AFP reports.

Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations and a frontier that has been closed for near three decades.

On a visit to Azerbaijan on Tuesday, Erdogan said: "If Armenia shows sincere goodwill towards Azerbaijan, then there will be no obstacles for the normalization of ties between Turkey and Armenia."

"Turkey will reciprocate to Armenia's steps aimed at building lasting peace in the region," he told a news conference after attending the opening of a newly-built airport in Fizuli, which came under Azerbaijan's control during the 44-day war against Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) in fall 2020.

In the war against Artsakh, Turkey supported Azerbaijan militarily, also by transferring terrorist mercenaries from the Middle East to fight against Karabakh. Armenia was the first to report on Turkey's deployment of thousands of Syrian fighters to Azerbaijan. International media publications followed suit, as did reactions from France, Russia, Iran and Syria.

In September, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Yerevan was prepared to hold discussions to repair relations with Turkey.