A private exchange between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was accidentally caught on a live microphone during a campaign event in Yerevan, where the ruling Civil Contract party is rallying support ahead of Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary elections.
Mirzoyan was heard telling Pashinyan, “The Turks are opening today. We’ll prepare a welcome text and a comment from the Foreign Ministry spokesperson,” a phrase that spread quickly online and led many Armenians to believe the long-closed Armenia-Turkey border was about to reopen. Within hours, both officials walked the moment back, clarifying that the comment was not about the border at all, but about a behind-the-scenes change in how Turkish exports to Armenia are documented.
The Armenia-Turkey border has remained closed since 1993, when Turkey unilaterally shut it in solidarity with Azerbaijan during the Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) liberation war, sealing Armenia off from one of its two land routes to Europe and imposing what has functioned as a decades-long blockade on the country.
Mirzoyan later declined to elaborate on the substance of the conversation, saying only, “They’ll open it, we’ll tell you,” while clarifying that the remark was not related to the border or to granting citizens of third countries the right to cross it.
Pashinyan then explained that the exchange concerned changes in Turkish export documentation procedures. According to the prime minister, Turkish regulations had not previously allowed Armenia to be listed directly as the destination country in export paperwork, a restriction that reflected Ankara’s posture of non-recognition rather than any logistical necessity. Goods were instead documented as exports to a third country before being re-exported to Armenia, an inefficiency Armenian importers absorbed for years.
“There are many Turkish-made goods in Armenia, and this was an additional process, they were sent to another country, documented, and then brought here,” Pashinyan said. He added that the Turkish side is now changing the procedure so that Armenia can be directly listed as the final destination. “Now they are processing it in a way that Armenia is indicated as the country of destination,” he said, adding that this was what Mirzoyan had referred to in his comment.
Mirzoyan later hinted that the development was part of broader positive dynamics between the two countries. “That (reopening the border) also will happen one day, of course, I’m sure. But this time it’s about something a little different. As soon as the time comes to reveal, I’ll say. It’s about good things. From now on, it will always be about good things only,” he said. He added that it is no secret that Armenia and the Armenian people have European ambitions, and that any decision regarding the future of Armenia will be made by Armenian citizens, a line that landed pointedly during the campaign window and underscored that Yerevan’s strategic direction is set in Yerevan, not in foreign capitals.
The moment lands amid a steady stream of signals around the Armenia-Turkey normalization track, a process in which Armenia has consistently pushed for movement while Turkey has tied progress to its alliance with Azerbaijan. Speaking at the Yerevan Dialogue forum last week, Mirzoyan said, “We have excellent dialogue with Turkey. Armenia-Turkey dialogue has reached a sufficient level for positive results.”
At the European Political Community summit in Yerevan on May 5, Turkey’s special representative for normalization with Armenia, Serdar Kilic, and his Armenian counterpart, Ruben Rubinyan, signed a memorandum on the joint restoration of the historic Ani Bridge, an Armenian architectural monument from the medieval Bagratid kingdom that spans the border between the two countries. The signing took place in the presence of Turkish Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz, whose trip was the first high-level Turkish visit to Armenia in nearly two decades, since former President Abdullah Gul in 2008, an eighteen-year gap that reflects how rarely Ankara reciprocates Armenian openness. Mirzoyan also noted that the working group on restoring railway connections along the Gyumri-Kars route had recently met for the third time.
Other confidence-building steps have moved in parallel, though each has been incremental rather than transformative. In January, the two countries agreed to ease visa procedures for diplomatic, service, and special passport holders through free e-visas. In March, Turkish Airlines launched daily Istanbul-Yerevan flights. The sides have also agreed in principle to open their land border to third-country nationals and diplomatic passport holders, though implementation has yet to take place.
The pattern is familiar to Armenian observers, namely agreements in principle followed by delays, with Ankara repeatedly conditioning concrete moves on the trajectory of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations rather than acting on its own bilateral commitments. Turkey continues to deny the Armenian Genocide of 1915, the foundational unresolved issue between the two countries, and has historically tied any opening of the border to Armenian concessions, from constitutional changes to a peace agreement with Azerbaijan on Baku’s terms. For Yerevan, the working assumption remains that Armenia will continue engaging in good faith, but the burden of proof on whether normalization translates into open borders, full diplomatic relations, and an honest reckoning with the past sits squarely with Turkey.
