Armenian aviation authorities permit FlyOne Armenia and Turkish Pegasus airlines to operate flights between Yerevan and Istanbul

YEREVAN, January 11. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Civil Aviation Committee has given permission to Armenian FlyOne Armenia and Turkish Pegasus airlines to operate charter flights between Turkish Istanbul and Armenian Yerevan, according to the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure.

According to earlier reports, Pegasus airline had applied for making two flights a week, starting from February.

Flyone Armenia Board chairman Aram Ananyan said they were waiting for the Turkish aviation authorities' permission to start flights.
On December 16, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said Ankara was considering the applications of Turkish and Armenian airlines for Istanbul-Yerevan-Istanbul flights. Turkish media quoted Turkish Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Adil Karaismayoglu, as saying earlier that Armenia and Turkey will resume flights after a 2.5-year break.

Although Turkey was one of the first countries to recognize Armenia’s independence from the former Soviet Union, the countries have no diplomatic ties and Turkey shut down their common border in 1993, in a show of solidarity with Azerbaijan which was locked in a conflict with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Turkey also refuses to recognize the Armenian genocide, committed during 1915-1923 when an estimated 1.5 million Armenians were massacred by the Ottoman government. The overwhelming majority of historians widely view the event as genocide.

In 2009, Ankara and Yerevan reached an agreement in Zurich to establish diplomatic relations and to open their joint border, but Turkey later said it could not ratify the deal until Armenia withdrew from Nagorno-Karabakh.

In 2020, Turkey strongly backed Azerbaijan in the six-week conflict with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh which ended with a Russia-brokered peace deal that saw Azerbaijan gain control of a significant part of Nagorno-Karabakh. -0-