Armenia to complete renovation of Margara checkpoint on border with Turkey
YEREVAN, June 26. /ARKA/. The Armenian side is working to improve the infrastructure at the Margara checkpoint located on the border with Turkey, Armenian National Assembly Vice-Speaker and Special Representative for Dialogue with Turkey Ruben Rubinyan said today.
"This work will soon be completed, and Armenia hopes that the Turkish side will also fulfill its obligations," Rubinyan said during a press briefing in the parliament.
He said also that the negotiation process between the two countries to normalize their relations continues including direct dialogue with his Turkish counterpart, Ambassador Serdar Kilic.
"At the moment there is no agreement on a new meeting with Kilic. If there is one, the public will be informed accordingly," the deputy speaker said.
On April 21 this year, the Armenian government allocated 28.3 million drams (about $73 thousand) for the design and rehabilitation of the Margara checkpoint on the Armenian-Turkish border. Yerevan assumed that the checkpoint could be put into operation this summer.
Earlier Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke about the high probability of establishing normal relations between Armenia and Turkey. He hopes that in the near future the Armenian-Turkish border will be opened to create grounds for the development of normal neighborly relations.
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.
On n February 9, Armenia sent 100 tons of aid to quake-stricken Turkey by five trucks through a border gate between the two countries that was opened for the first time in 35 years.
In December 2021, the two countries appointed special envoys to help normalize relations who have had 4 meetings already.-0-
