Turkey’s state-owned airline, Turkish Airlines, has announced its intention to launch direct flights to Armenia in a significant step in the process of normalising relations and bringing the two countries closer together after decades of diplomatic tensions.
According to a notification filed with the Turkish Public Disclosure Platform (KAP) for the Istanbul Stock Exchange, the board of directors of Turkish Airlines approved the opening of scheduled routes to both Timișoara (Romania) and Yerevan (Armenia), “depending on passenger demand and market conditions”, as reported by Turkish broadcaster NTV. The airline said that details on the start dates of the routes will be communicated soon.
This decision coincides with a series of significant rapprochement gestures between Ankara and Yerevan. Last month, a Turkish delegation led by Ambassador Serdar Kılıç paid an unusual visit to Armenia, crossing the border at the Alican border crossing in eastern Türkiye and being received on the other side by Armenian representative and deputy speaker of parliament Ruben Rubinyan: a historic step, the first time in decades that a Turkish diplomat has entered Armenian territory by crossing the land border – closed since the 1990s after the first Karabakh War – and which the two countries are negotiating to reopen.
In another historic step, last month the Armenian government approved with a decree signed on 11 September by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan a symbolic but fundamental change: removing from border stamps the image of Mount Ararat – Mount Ağrı, in Turkish – located in eastern Turkey. The decree – which introduced changes to the design of the stamps that will come into force on 1 November – did not explicitly mention the symbolic mountain – located in Turkey but considered a national and and even vindictive symbol by Armenians – but official images released showed how the silhouette of Mount Ararat has completely disappeared from the design.
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Edited and reviewed by:
Pablo Gómez is a specialist in Turkey and has been editor-in-chief of Hispanatolia since 2011. He has been analysing current affairs and geopolitics in Turkey and the surrounding region since 2006.
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