Monitoring Desk
DAMASCUS: A border crossing between Armenia and Turkiye opened for the first time in 35 years on Saturday to allow the supply of humanitarian aid through after a powerful earthquake hit the region, an official said.
Five trucks loaded with aid items, including food and water, arrived in Turkiye from the Alican border crossing, tweeted Serdar Kilic, Turkiye’s special envoy for talks with Armenia.
The aid comes after a massive earthquake rocked Turkey and Syria this week, killing nearly 25,000 people in both countries and injuring thousands more.
State news agency Anadolu reported that this was the first time the border crossing had opened since 1988, when Turkiye sent aid to Armenia after it was hit by an earthquake that killed 25,000 to 30,000 people.
Kilic, in his tweet, thanked Armenia. The aid supply also included medicine, he said.
Armenia-Turkiye border has been closed since 1990s
The two neighbouring countries have never established formal diplomatic ties, and their shared border has been closed since the 1990s.
Their relationship is haggard by World War I-era mass killings of Armenians in the Ottoman Empire, atrocities Yerevan insists amount to genocide.
But in December 2021, the two nations appointed special envoys to help normalize relations — a year after Armenia lost to Turkiye’s ally Azerbaijan in a war for control of the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Turkiye fiercely rejects the genocide label, arguing that 300,000 to 500,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died in civil strife when Armenians rose against their Ottoman rulers and supported the invading Russian troops.
In February 2022, Turkiye and Armenia resumed their first commercial flights in two years.
The land border between the two neighbouring countries has remained closed since 1993, forcing trucks to transit through Georgia or Iran.
