Diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey are officially non-existent and have historically been hostile. Whilst Turkey recognises the Soviet-Era borders of Eastern Armenia (that map to the modern Republic of Armenia), it has refused to establish diplomatic relations through diplomatic missions or ambassadors. In 1993, Turkey reacted to the war in Nagorno-Karabakh by joining Azerbaijan in imposing a transportation and economic blockade against Armenia which remains enforced to this day.

In 2008–2009, the countries experienced a brief thaw in bilateral relations and in October 2009 the sides signed the normalisation protocols. However, the protocols were never ratified by either side, and the protocols were formally annulled by Armenia in March 2018. Reconciliation in diplomatic relations has been hampered by Turkey's position against Armenia on Nagorno-Karabakh and its official denial of the Armenian genocide.

In December 2021, Armenia and Turkey announced appointing special envoys who met in Moscow in January 2022, with positive international reactions for attempts of normalising relations.

History

In 1071, the Seljuk Turks defeated the Byzantine Empire and captured its emperor at the Battle of Manzikert. In the resulting chaos, the Turks easily overran much of the Byzantine Anatolia. Despite Byzantine reconquests and occasional western incursions in the form of crusading armies, a series of Turkish states were established in Anatolia. These Turkic tribes came around the south end of the Caspian Sea for the most part, and hence absorbed and transmitted Islamic culture and civilization in contrast to other Turks who, such as the Cumans, became partially Westernised and Christianised. With some superiority in population and organisation, regional power naturally came to rest in the hands of the Turkic-speaking population. Many Turkic people came into the region fleeing from the Mongol invasions, and others later came in as soldiers fighting in the ranks of Mongol armies. Turkic Islamised populations also absorbed large numbers of the older inhabitants of Asia Minor, including Greeks and Armenians, who went over to the Islamic religion and Turkic language, creating a frontier society. Armenian communities continued to flourish under relatively tolerant Ottoman rule for centuries, either as minority populations in urban areas or as exclusively Armenian towns in rural areas. In cities such as Istanbul and İzmir, Armenians played particularly important roles; an 1851 report in The New York Times, for instance, indicates that Armenians comprised nearly one quarter of the population of Istanbul at that time, with over 200,000 residents.

Decline of the Ottoman Empire Hamidian rule For a half century leading up to World War I, the Armenian populations of Anatolia became increasingly politically active, and in turn endured increasingly more brutal persecution under Sultan Abdul Hamid II. As the Ottoman Empire declined, its political leadership either authorised or tolerated increasingly violent and reckless attacks on the Armenian population, attracting harsh criticism from various Western nations whose missionary communities in Anatolia witnessed several wide scale massacres of Armenians. From 1894 to 1896 the Sultan ordered the deaths of up to 300,000 Armenians, resulting in at least 50,000 Armenian orphans, in the Hamidian massacres, which were later described by BBC correspondent Chris Morris in The New Turkey (Granta Books, 2005) as "a portent of the grim events of 1915".

The ensuing violence prompted condemnation from several heads of state, including American President Grover Cleveland, who condemned the "bloody butchery" in Anatolia. While it was unclear to what extent the violence against Armenians was governmentally organised, Cleveland's speech noted that "strong evidence exists of actual complicity of Turkish soldiers in the work of destruction and robbery."Cleveland, Grover (1896-12-08) "MESSAGE OF THE PRESIDENT; Belief Expressed that Christendom Will Not Much Longer Tolerate Atrocities in Armenia. THE CUBAN MATTER DISCUSSED Conditions Under Which the United States Might Be Compelled to Intervene. THINKS THE WILSON BILL SHOULD HAVE A LONGER TRIAL. Suggests the Use of the Surplus to Meet Any Deficiency in the Treasury. WOULD RETIRE DEMAND NOTES Army and Navy Progress Commended—Post Office mill Pension Reforms Urged—General Suggestions", The New York Times

In 1909, as the authority of the nascent Young Turk government splintered, Abdul Hamid II briefly regained his sultanate with a populist appeal to Islamism. 30,000 Armenians perished in the subsequent Adana Massacre.

The Armenian national movement

The Armenian national movement, also known as the "Armenian revolutionary movement", was the Armenian national effort to re-establish an Armenian state in the historic Armenian homelands of eastern Asia Minor and the Transcaucasus (Southern Caucasus). The decline of the Ottoman Empire was in part the result and in part the cause of the rise of nationalism among various groups that made up the multi-ethnic and multi-religion empire. The 1877–1878 Russo-Turkish War, which resulted in the independence of Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, provided a model for other aspiring nationalists and revolutionaries. The Hinchak and Dashnak, Armenian revolutionary committees, were formed following the 1878 Berlin Treaty in the eastern provinces of the Ottoman Empire, which were very much under direct Russian threat.Louise Nalbandian, "The Armenian Revolutionary Movement", 1963 Yet, this is contrasted by Fâ'iz el-Ghusein, who stated, "I have enquired of many Armenians whom I have met, but I have not found one who said that he desired political independence."el-Ghusein, Fâ'iz, Martyred Armenia, (George H. Doran Co., 1918), 3.

Zaven, the Armenian bishop in Istanbul had already declared, before the war started, to the reporter of Msak, the organ of the Armenian nationalist-liberals, that "the radical solution of the Armenian Question would be the unification of all Armenia (including the Eastern Anatolia of Turkey-M.P.) under Russian sovereignty with which Armenians' fate was historically linked. The bishop stated that "the sooner the Russians arrive here, the better for us."Armenian SSR State Central History Archives (TsGİA Arm. SSR) fond vıpisok, folder 37, sheet 45–46, cited in K.N. Karamyan, Polojenie Zapadnıh Armyan, "ArmyanskiVopros" i Mejdunarodnaya Diplomatiya V Posledney Çetverti XIX Veka İ Naçale XX Veka, Yerevanski Gosudarstvennıy Universitet, Yerevan, 1972, p.87 vd.

Agitation for improvement of living conditions in the Ottoman Empire among Armenians had started much before the events of World War I, as reported in The New York Times of July 29, 1894:

In 1894, Zeki Pasha, Commandant of the Fourth Army Corps, was decorated for his participation during the Sassoun massacre.Robert Melson, Revolution and Genocide (1992), 60.W. Blackwood, "Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine" (1897), 21.George Shaw/Lefevre Eversley, "The Turkish Empire from 1288 to 1914" (1914), 341. During the massacres, he reportedly stated, "not finding any rebellion we cleared the country so none should occur in the future."Arman Dzhonovich, "The Armenian Massacres, 1894–1896" (2004), 63–64.

The Armenian genocide

The Armenian genocide was the forced deportation"Lord Bryce's report on Armenian atrocities an appalling catalogue of outrage and massacre", The New York Times, Lord Bryce on Armenian Atrocities Fashions Drama, Page X2, October 8, 1916. and extermination of the majority of the Ottoman Armenian population between 1915 and 1917, when between 800,000 and 1,500,000 (per the government of France) Armenians were killed.Bevan, Robert. "Cultural Cleansing: Who Remembers The Armenians", The Destruction of Memory, Reaction Books, London. 2006, pp. 25–60

According to Rafael de Nogales, Ottoman commander of the artillery at Van Resistance, "the Armenians’ posture was defensive and in response to the massacres being committed in villages surrounding Van".Balakian, Peter, The Burning Tigris (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), 208. Also, Armenians were being forcibly relocated from Zeitun in March 1915, months before the Tehcir Law was passed.Hartunian, Abraham H., Neither to Laugh nor to Weep (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968), 54. Further massacres and deportations occurred during the closing stages and immediate aftermath of World War I. The modern Turkish government has always denied the fact that the massacres of the Armenians during the Ottoman period constituted genocide, inflaming Armenian resentment in Armenia and around the world.Balakian, Peter. The Burning Tigris In recent years the Armenian genocide of 1915 has been increasingly discussed in Turkey, at conferences and universities, since the law does not prevent debates on the topic. Even though freedom of speech and freedom of thought are guaranteed by Turkish law due to the nature of Article 301, people claiming an Armenian genocide can be accused of calling the nation "killers" and thus "insulting Turkishness". Over eighty authors have faced prosecution for "insulting Turkishness"; Kemal Kerinçsiz, an ultra-nationalist lawyer, is responsible for at least forty of them, and his group Büyük Hukukçular Birliği ("Great Union of Jurists" or "Turkish Lawyer's Union") for most of the rest. The Turkish educational system continues to mandate teaching of Armenian genocide denial in its public schools.

First Republic of Armenia

The 1918 Treaty of Brest-Litovsk established three independent states in the Caucasus, including the First Republic of Armenia. Within two months of its signing, the Ottoman Empire reneged on the treaty by invading the nascent Armenian state, until being stopped at the Battle of Sardarabad. The invasion culminated in the Treaty of Batum in June 1918.

Interwar and Soviet periods

The interwar period was marked by the partitioning of the Ottoman Empire; Anatolia became the Republic of Turkey in 1923. Turkish revolutionaries waged the Turkish War of Independence against Ottoman loyalists and neighboring countries, and engaged in continuing conflict with the Democratic Republic of Armenia.

On September 24, 1920, Turkish forces invaded Armenia, advancing into Sarighamish and Kars. Mustafa Kemal Atatürk sent delegations to Moscow; the DRA would ultimately become the Armenian SSR of the Soviet Union. The Treaty of Kars, identical to the previously concluded Russo-Turkish Treaty of Moscow, was signed on October 23, 1921, between the Grand National Assembly of Turkey and representatives of Bolshevist Russia, Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan and Soviet Georgia (all of which formed part of the Soviet Union after the December 1922 Union Treaty).

The Soviet Union and Turkey remained officially neutral after the Treaty of Kars, and there was no hostility between Turkey and the Armenian SSR. The land border was closed except for the Kars–Leninakan railway.

Capital tax and Aşkale

During World War II, an extremely high tax burden was imposed on Armenian, Greek and Jewish citizens of Turkey, and tax assessors had a free hand in determining the amount, often amounts that could not be paid. In the winter of 1942, hundreds who could not pay, including elderly men, were brought to the town of Aşkale, with very harsh winters, and made to shovel snow continually for as much as five months. Some were able to pay locals to perform the labor for them, and some succumbed to the cold and conditions, sleeping in barns, coffeehouses, or anywhere else they could get shelter. The book "You Rejoice My Heart" by Turkish author Kemal Yalçın includes a visit by the author to Aşkale in the 1990s to learn first hand about the tax and the labor camps, the conditions and the victims at a time when this incident was dangerous and taboo to discuss in Turkey.

Istanbul pogrom