Turkey Weighs Opening Armenia Border That’s Shut Since the 90s

Turkey is considering reopening its land border with Armenia in the next six months, according to people familiar with the matter, doing away with Europe’s last closed frontier of the Cold War-era and paving the way to revived trade in the Caucasus. 

Turkey shut the border in 1993 in solidarity with ally Azerbaijan in the war with Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh. The landlocked mountainous region in the South Caucasus broke away from Azerbaijan soon after the collapse of the Soviet Union, triggering decades of conflict. Earlier this year, US President Donald Trumpsigned a joint peace declaration with the leaders of Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan, seeking to end the conflict.

The diplomatic breakthrough with Azerbaijan and the re-opening of the border with Turkey would give Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan an important boost as he heads for elections in June. If he wins a new term, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev could work together with Pashinyan and formalize a peace agreement, said the people who are directly familiar with the thaw between the countries. Only after that, Turkey could appoint an ambassador to Armenia to restore diplomatic ties, they said.

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said last month Turkey won’t resume ties without a final peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. 
“If we normalize relations now, we will be taking away Armenia’s biggest reason for signing a peace agreement.” Fidan said.

Turkish and Armenian envoys toured the Akyaka–Akhurik bordercrossing on Saturday and met in the Armenian border city of Gyumri to advance plans to restore the Kars–Gyumri rail link, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry said. Replacing the tracks could take as long as five months, the people said. Turkey is also building new roads in the area for border patrols, local officials said.

As part of the Trump-backed deal, the US gained exclusive rights to develop a transport route – called the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, or TRIPP – connecting mainland Azerbaijan and Turkey via Armenia, which would become part of a new east-west line between Beijing and London. The Zangezur Corridor, as it is known, would help boost Turkey’s status as a regional transit hub. 

Pashinyan, speaking at the Armenian parliament mid-November, said that construction work on the passage will begin in the second half of 2026, according to news reports, adding that railway would follow the former Soviet route because building it elsewhere was not realistic.
Turkey’s reopening the border is seen as likely in early 2026, “yet such a move by Ankara cannot be too closely linked to the Armenian election,” said Richard Giragosian, the director of Yerevan-based Regional Studies Center. “Pashinyan has to be careful and cautious in not being seen as too closely tied to the Erdogan government,” while taking credit for progress in normalization with Turkey.

If Turkey agrees to open its border, businesses on both sides of the sleepy frontier stand to gain. Ankara and Yerevan are making a renewed effort to improve ties but challenges remain, with the two at loggerheads over the 1915 mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, which Armenia calls genocide and Turkey rejects.

Bloomberg