Armenia, Turkey to discuss border-crossing by third-country nationals, cargo flights

YEREVAN. Oct 25 (Interfax) - Representatives from Armenia and Turkey plan to meet at their countries' border to discuss the implementation of the arrangements for cargo flights and opening their border to citizens of third countries.

"A meeting of representatives from the relevant authorities of Armenia and Turkey is planned to be held in the near future for a discussion of the implementation of two agreements reached in July. We are talking about the agreements to begin direct cargo flights and to open the [joint] border to citizens of third countries," the Armenian Foreign Ministry's spokesperson Vahan Hunanyan was reported by Armenpress as saying on Tuesday.

On July 1 the Armenian and Turkish special representatives for the normalization of bilateral relations, Ruben Rubinyan and Serdar Kilic, respectively, met in Vienna and agreed to ensure as early as possible the possibility of crossing the Armenian-Turkish land border by third-country citizens and to launch direct cargo flights between Armenia and Turkey.

The two countries do not have diplomatic relations and their joint border has been closed since 1993 at Ankara's initiative over the conflict in Karabakh. The first meeting of their special representatives took place in Moscow on January 14 of this year.