Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan who met with his Turkish counterpart Mevlut Cavusoglu on Wednesday in Ankara, said that Armenia and Turkey are working to open the land border between the two countries to third country citizens before the beginning of the tourist season.
Mirzoyan told his fellow cabinet members on Thursday that the agreement, which was reached in July, will also allow those holding diplomatic passports to travel through the land border.
He reiterated that the two countries will also work to restore the historic bridge of Ani. An agreement was reached during Mirzoyan’s talks with Cavusoglu.
“There is an agreement to speed up the process of dialogue aimed at full opening of the border,” Mirzoyan said.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan hailed Mirzoyan’s meeting in Ankara as “very important and meaningful.”
The prime minister told his cabinet on Thursday the recent steps taken by Armenia were motivated by humanitarian efforts and scoffed at criticism against him and his government for Armenia’s swift response to the February 6 earthquake.
“I have to emphasize that I find the criticism against us totally unacceptable, because I can’t imagine any situation when someone can remain indifferent when millions of people need help on the other side of the door. That’s absolutely unacceptable under any grounds or reasons,” Pashinyan said.
He reminded that the government’s action plan emphasized the need to change the quality of Armenia’s relations in the region.
“I regret that such certain changes are happening under emergency conditions due to the earthquake,” Pashinyan said referring to the accelerated nature of the Armenia-Turkey normalization process.
“Perhaps objectively human tragedy makes people understand each other better, perhaps that’s the objective reality. I hope this can truly become a new starting point for establishing Armenian-Turkish relations,” added Pashinyan.
