Armenia and Turkey plan to permanently open their border crossings between them for the first time in three decades, Armenian officials announced on Friday.

Border crossing points will initially be open only to diplomats and citizens of third countries, and this approach will be put into practice before the start of the tourist season, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said, DPA and Agerpres reported.

The opening of the land crossing points took place after Armenia and Turkey agreed to resume direct flights between them.

Turkey opened its border with Armenia for the first time in February after the government in Yerevan sent aid shipments and humanitarian personnel following earthquakes that hit Turkey hard.

Relations between the two countries were constantly strained. The massacre committed against the Armenians by the Ottoman Empire more than a century ago did not allow to overcome this tension. However, at the end of 2021, Armenia and Turkey restored diplomatic relations.

The conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh is another source of tension

Turkey unilaterally closed its border with Armenia in 1993 as a gesture of support for its ally Azerbaijan, which lost control of the predominantly Armenian enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh after a war with Armenia.

The closure of the Turkish border has caused serious economic problems for Armenia, and the country’s conflict with Azerbaijan remains unresolved. The new Armenian-Azerbaijani war, which began in the fall of 2020, resulted in the death of about 6,500 people and was stopped by a ceasefire concluded by Russia in the face of the imminent defeat of the Armenian forces.

According to the Moscow-brokered agreement, Armenia was supposed to cede to Azerbaijan part of the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave and the Azerbaijani territories around it, which it controlled after the war in the early 1990s.