Armenia’s foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan said the country’s border with Turkey could reopen “within the next few months,” paving the way for the establishment of diplomatic relations between Yerevan and Ankara after more than three decades of isolation.
“I personally see no obstacles to opening the Armenian-Turkish border or to establishing diplomatic relations. Our Turkish colleagues have confirmed the same,” Mirzoyan said in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
“That’s why I believe we will achieve tangible progress in this direction in the coming weeks or months. It’s a matter of, I don’t know, maybe just a few months – that’s my perception. Let’s see how it develops.”
According to Mirzoyan, Ankara had previously stated it could not move forward with normalization until relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan improved. However, he noted that the peace agreement between Baku and Yerevan has now been initialed, removing a key obstacle to Turkish-Armenian reconciliation.
“The Turkish side has expressed – and is practically demonstrating – its readiness to open the border, resume rail connections, and restart direct bilateral trade, even without formally establishing diplomatic relations,” the foreign minister said.
Despite sharing a land border, Armenia and Turkey have had no diplomatic relations since the early 1990s. The two countries signed Zurich Protocols in 2009 to establish ties and normalize relations, but neither parliament ratified the documents, and Armenia annulled them in 2018.
Normalization talks resumed in 2021, with Serdar Kılıç, Turkey’s former ambassador to the United States, and Ruben Rubinyan, deputy speaker of Armenia’s parliament, appointed as special envoys.
Their most recent meeting took place on September 12 at the Margara border crossing, where both sides reaffirmed their commitment to implementing earlier agreements – including the partial reopening of the border for third-country nationals and diplomatic passport holders.
