The special envoys of Turkey and Armenia in the process of normalizing their relations met today at the Margara border crossing between the two countries, reported “Türkiye Today“. This is the first such meeting at the border in years, BTA reported.
The publication defines the meeting as a “historical step“ in the process. Turkish representative Serdar Kılıç was officially welcomed at the border crossing by his Armenian counterpart Ruben Rubinyan.
Before his trip for the meeting, Kılıç made a statement to journalists in the eastern Turkish city of Uğur, in which he emphasized the importance of the so-called Zangezur Corridor, as Turkey calls the agreed transport corridor between Azerbaijan and its exclave Nakhichevan through Armenian territory. The Turkish envoy described the project as “a vital route not only between Armenia and Turkey, but also as a gateway to Central Asia and the Turkic republics“, underlining the potential for regional connectivity.
Kalıç said Armenian officials had expressed their readiness to move the project forward. “Today they said: “We are ready to open the border“. There are no political obstacles, only technical preparations remain before concrete actions are taken“.
He stressed the potential economic benefits for the bordering Turkish districts from the implementation of the corridor.
For his part, the governor of Agder Ercan Turan mentioned the importance of the Alizhdan border crossing and the recent start of construction of the Diluju railway line – Kars, which reaches Turkey's border with the Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan.
The process of normalizing relations between Turkey and Armenia has been developing intensively since the agreement reached by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at a meeting in Washington, hosted by US President Donald Trump on August 8. The meeting also agreed to build a transport link between the main part of Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan, often called the Zangezur Corridor. However, at the meeting between Aliyev and Pashinyan, it was called "Trump's Road to World Peace and Prosperity". According to the agreement, the United States will have the right to participate in the construction of this zone, which will include a railway line, oil and gas pipelines and fiber optic cables.