Fidan phoned Rubio to congratulate him on the appointment, confirmed by the U.S. Senate earlier this week, and discuss bilateral relations and regional affairs.
According to the State Department spokeswoman, Tammy Bruce, the top U.S. diplomat reaffirmed “the importance of U.S.-Turkey relations, Turkey’s role as a key NATO Ally, and our shared interests in the region.”
“The Secretary and the Foreign Minister also discussed the importance of a durable and dignified peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan,” Bruce said in a statement. She did not give details of that discussion.
Citing Turkish Foreign Ministry sources, Turkey’s state-owned Anadolu news agency reported that the two men “stressed the significance of coordination on regional issues.”
Turkey is Azerbaijan’s closest ally, having provided it with decisive military support during the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Ankara continues to strongly support Baku and its multiple demands to Armenia, including the opening of a land corridor that would connect Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave as well as Turkey via a key Armenian region.
Rubio and Fidan spoke amid what many in Armenia see as a serious risk of Azerbaijani military attack threatened by Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev earlier this month. Observers in Yerevan say that increased contacts between Azerbaijani and Turkish military officials reported in recent months may be another sign of preparations for such military action.
The commanders of Turkish and Azerbaijani ground forces held a fresh meeting in Ankara on Friday ahead of yet another joint military exercise that will reportedly take place near Turkey’s border with Armenia.
In his previous capacity as U.S. senator, Rubio co-sponsored pro-Armenian legislation that accused Azerbaijan of carrying out ethnic cleansing in Karabakh and called on Washington to consider imposing sanctions against Azerbaijani leaders. The Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA), a lobbying group, endorsed last week his nomination as secretary of state by President Donald Trump.
“While the previous Trump-Pence and current Biden-Harris administrations failed to prevent Azerbaijan’s ethnic cleansing of Artsakh, the incoming Trump-Vance Administration has an unprecedented opportunity to reverse it -- by promoting a just, durable, and dignified peace in the region grounded in accountability for war crimes and aligned with the right of Artsakh’s Armenians to a collective and protected return to their homeland,” ANCA Policy Director Alexander Galitsky said in testimony submitted to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
During the U.S. presidential race, Trump blamed then President Joe Biden’s administration for the 2023 forced exodus of Nagorno-Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population and pledged to “protect persecuted Christians” and “restore peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”