A crossing point has been opened on the Turkey-Armenia border for the first time in 35 years to deliver aid to earthquake victims, Turkey’s official Anadolu news agency reported on Saturday. Five trucks carrying aid for victims of the earthquake that struck Turkey and Syria on Monday crossed the Alican crossing point in Igdir province on Saturday, Anadolu said, publishing a photo of the trucks.
“Humanitarian aid sent by Armenia has crossed the Margara Bridge on the Armenia-Turkey border and is heading towards the earthquake-affected areas,” Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister tweeted. Vahan Kostanayna, quoted by Anadolu.
Normalize relationships
According to the Turkish agency, this crossing point had been specially opened in 1988 to send aid to Armenia which had just suffered an earthquake affecting its capital Yerevan and whose toll is estimated between 25,000 and 30,000 dead.
The two countries, divided by the memory of the Armenian genocide in 1915 and by the Nagorny Karabakh conflict, began to reconnect since December 2021 with the appointment of special envoys who met several times in Vienna to discuss the normalization of their relationships. Commercial flights also resumed in February 2022.