Despite Armenia’s readiness and repeated calls for action, Turkey has yet to take any tangible steps towards implementing the agreement reached in July 2022 to open its border with Armenia.
“We have not seen any steps from the Turkish side towards the implementation of this agreement, but we hope that this agreement will be implemented,” said Ruben Rubinyan, Armenia’s Deputy Parliament Speaker and special envoy in the normalization process, during a briefing with journalists. He added that while there is a planned meeting with Turkish special envoy Serdar Kilic, the date remains unconfirmed.
Rubinyan stated that the Armenian government has fulfilled all its obligations by completing infrastructural work, including the repair and readiness of the Margara border checkpoint, located 40 kilometers southwest of Yerevan. “The checkpoint is ready for operation,” said Rubinyan.
When asked whether this could be due to the fact that Turkey is delaying the process and putting forward preconditions regarding the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations, Rubinyan replied that he did not want to comment on this, stating, “Our position: we have an agreement that the land border should be opened for citizens of third countries and diplomatic passport holders, and we expect this agreement to be fulfilled,” concluded Rubinyan.
Regarding Armenia’s dialogue with Turkey, Rubinyan mentioned: “It’s not that there are no meetings; if you remember, the last meeting”of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Turkey”took place at the end of February this year in Antalya [in Turkey]. In the same city and at the same time, I met with the representative of Turkey. There hasn’t been an official meeting for a long time, but we have an agreement that a new meeting will take place between the representatives of Armenia and Turkey; [but] we don’t have an agreement on the date and place yet.”
Another facet of the unfulfilled agreement includes establishing air freight traffic between the two nations. Despite formal approval by the Turkish government in January 2023 to allow cargo flights to and from Armenia, a complete ban on Armenian goods imports persists.
Turkey’s stance on further normalization is contingent on Armenia’s acceptance of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace accord, sought by Azerbaijan. At a summit of Turkic state leaders in Kazakhstan in November 2023, Turkish President Erdogan reiterated demands for Armenia to allow an extraterritorial corridor to Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave”an idea firmly rejected by Yerevan.
The complexity of the stalled normalization process was underscored during a recent encounter. Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Turkish counterpart Hakan Fidan discussed the stalled process on March 1 when they met on the sidelines of an international security conference in Antalya, Turkey. This meeting, also attended by Rubinyan and Kilic, highlighted ongoing discussions despite the lack of formal meetings in recent times.
