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Turkey and Armenia announced in a joint statement Monday the launch of talks aimed at establishing diplomatic ties. The announcement is the first concrete step toward normalizing relations since the two countries announced that they would resume ties in April this year.

The negotiations, which are being mediated by Switzerland, mark a thaw in relations between the neighbors after a century of animosity. Turkey and Armenia have never had diplomatic ties; in 1993, Turkey closed the border with Armenia in support of Azerbaijan, which was fighting Armenia over the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh at the time.

Analysts say Turkey's improved relations with Armenia will help consolidate its position as a regional power.

According to Public Radio of Armenia, Turkey and Armenia will engage in consultations on two protocols – promoting diplomatic relations and developing bilateral ties. The talks are expected to last six weeks, after which both countries will submit the protocols to their respective parliaments to be ratified.

The border between the two countries is expected to open within two months, reports Reuters.

The New York Times reports that the talks will not touch on arguably the most divisive issue between the two countries: the killing of more than 1 million Armenians under Turkish Ottoman rule between 1915 and 1918, which the present-day Turkish government does not recognize as genocide. Recently, Armenian President Serge Sarkisian indicated that Turkey's recognition of genocide is not a precondition for establishing relations.

The Swiss-mediated talks began last year, keeping a low profile to avoid exciting nationalist antagonism in both countries. Armenia's insistence that border and trade relations be normalized before any discussion of genocide began helped push the most contentious issue to the back burner.

Although the debate about the World War I-era killings will not be touched upon, the talks could still face obstacles, reports the Associated Press.

In Turkey, nationalist sentiment and suspicion about Armenian intentions is particularly high. Also, despite an agreement that the process should proceed without preconditions, Turkey's prime minister has linked it to a resolution of the dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh, an Azeri region that was occupied by Armenian troops.

Trend News Agency, a Baku-based news organization serving the Caucasus and Caspian region, reports that the Armenian opposition party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, will likely pressure the government to remain restrained in its dealings with Ankara.

Despite these hurdles, analysts in Armenia are optimistic that the talks will lead to improved bilateral relations, reports A1 Plus, a Yerevan-based news channel.

An analysis in The Economist suggests that improved relations with Armenia are part of Turkey's foreign policy strategy under Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu.

[Mr. Davutoglu's] approach rests on two pillars. One is to have "zero problems" with the neighbours, many of them troubled or troublesome. The other is "strategic depth". This calls for a Turkish zone of political, economic and cultural influence, primarily among neighbours (many of them former Ottoman dominions) in the Balkans, the south Caucasus and the Middle East.

On the issue of Turkish-Armenian relations, The Economist also suggests that Turkey's relations with the United States may have instilled a willingness to negotiate.

Mr Davutoglu insists that Turkey wants peace with Armenia. But one Western diplomat says that "rapprochement with Armenia is on its last legs."

This has raised the spectre of a row with Turkey's most powerful ally, America. Armenian-Americans want Mr Obama to honour his election pledge to insist that the massacre by Ottoman forces of more than a million of their ancestors in 1915 was genocide.