ISTANBUL: Turkiye and Armenia will formally resume trade relations after a 33-year freeze as part of a rapprochement between the two countries, a Turkish foreign ministry spokesman said on Wednesday.

Turkiye shut its border with Armenia in 1993 in support of its ally Azerbaijan, which was at war with Armenia over Karabakh.

Turkiye and Armenia have been cautiously moving towards rapprochement since late 2021, a year after Armenia was defeated by Azerbaijan in a fresh conflict over that disputed territory.

"Within the framework of our normalisation process with Armenia that has been ongoing since 2022... the bureaucratic preparations regarding the initiation of direct trade between our country and Armenia have been completed as of May 11," foreign ministry spokesman Oncu Keceli said on X.

Trade had already been passing between Turkiye and Armenia via Georgia, with taxes imposed in the transit country.

But under the new regulation, goods can be formally designated as direct exports from Turkiye to Armenia, with the origin and final destination listed as being in those countries.

Trade will continue to transit through an unspecified third country due to the lack of a functional border crossing.

"The necessary technical and bureaucratic work toward opening the common border between the two countries is still ongoing," the spokesman said.

Turkiye and Armenia also share a border with Iran.

Armenia welcomed Turkiye's decision "to lift the bans on bilateral trade with Armenia", its foreign ministry spokesperson said in a statement.

The spokesperson described it as an "important step towards the development of full-fledged and normal relations between the two countries".

Ankara's latest announcement marks a new step toward normalisation between Ankara and Yerevan after Azerbaijan's seizure of Karabakh, which saw most of the Armenian population leave.

Last month, Armenia and Turkiye decided to put the Kars-Gyumri railway line back into service on both sides of their border.

Turkiye's national carrier, Turkish Airlines, operated its first direct flight between Istanbul and Yerevan in March.

But the two sides remain divided over history.

The Armenians say 1.5 million of their people were killed under the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1917 and seek international recognition that it was genocide.

Turkiye strongly denies the accusation of genocide and disputes the numbers, saying that the Armenians were among hundreds of thousands of people who died in the turmoil of World War I as the Ottoman Empire disintegrated.

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