Turkey Allows Air Cargo Traffic with Armenia

It is not yet clear whether the development means that Armenian goods can now be airlifted to Turkey not only en route to third countries but also be sold there. Successive Turkish governments have banned any imports from Armenia since the early 1990s.

Armenia imposed a similar ban on Turkish imports during the 2020 war with Azerbaijan, citing Ankara’s “inflammatory calls,” arms supplies to Azerbaijan and “deployment of terrorist mercenaries to the conflict zone.” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s government lifted the ban a year later.

“If Turkey really opens its customs border … all kinds of [Armenian] goods could be brought here,” Gagik Musheghyan, an Armenian businessman based in Turkey, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday. “Everything, including food, alcohol, cigarettes.”

Turkey has for decades made the full opening of its border and the establishment of diplomatic relations with Armenia conditional on an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal acceptable to Azerbaijan. Turkish leaders have repeatedly reaffirmed this precondition since the start of the normalization talks with Yerevan in January 2022.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Çavusoglu said in October that Armenia must also agree to open an extraterritorial land corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave. Yerevan rejected the demand.