Turkey Border Reset Angers Armenians

Following last year’s historic U.S.-brokered peace deal, Armenia and Turkey are on the verge of opening their land border for the first time in more than three decades.

TEC News / AFP
KAREN MINASYAN / AFP

As Armenians marked 111 years since the First World War-era mass killing of their people by the Ottoman Empire, some in Yerevan expressed anger at normalising ties with Turkey without concessions.

Armenia and Turkey have moved towards resetting relations in recent years, after decades of hostility provoked by early 20th Century massacres—and Ankara’s support for Azerbaijan in its long-running conflict with Yerevan.

Both sides have taken steps towards opening their shared land border after more than three decades, while Turkey’s flag-carrying airline launched direct flights to Yerevan last month. According to Azat Aleksanyan, a 29-year-old programmer in Yerevan

The borders must be opened, but everything has its time. Even without taking the genocide into account, we only just emerged from a war. There’s no need to rush.

At a rally in the capital on April 23rd, hundreds of young people carried torches in commemoration of the 1915 massacres, which Armenia and more than two dozen countries have recognised as a genocide—a charge Turkey firmly rejects.

Armenia and Turkey have no diplomatic ties, and their land border has remained closed since 1993. But the two sides have signalled interest in warming ties in recent years.

In 2021, the two countries appointed special envoys to explore a path toward reconciliation.

Relations have further thawed since Azerbaijan and Armenia inked a U.S.-brokered peace agreement last year, although many points of contention remain, including Azerbaijan’s imprisonment of ethnic Armenian separatists.

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