Turkish power grid delegation visits Yerevan to discuss Gyumri-Kars line
A delegation of the Turkish Electricity Transmission Corporation (TEIAS), led by its director general Mustafa Pustun, held talks in Yerevan on reviving the Gyumri-Kars power transmission line and linking the power grids of Turkey and Armenia.
Turkey is building a direct bilateral track with Armenia without waiting for the completion of regional infrastructure projects. The Zangezur corridor project, which envisages communications through Nakhchivan, remains in force and is being promoted by Baku.
A business forum in Yerevan brought together about 150 Turkish entrepreneurs. The sides set out logistics, tourism, agriculture, textiles, construction and joint investment as areas of future cooperation, and raised the opening of border crossings to simplify trade.
Earlier, in the summer of 2026, Armenian and Turkish businesspeople met in Kars. Ayse Uzer of the Turkish Foreign Ministry and Hayk Darbinyan, an adviser to the head of Armenia's Foreign Ministry, took part, which placed the process under state coordination rather than private business initiative.
Attempts at Turkish-Armenian rapprochement were made before the current phase of the settlement, during the period of football diplomacy in 2008-2009 and the Zurich Protocols, when Azerbaijani lands were under occupation and a million people were living as refugees.
Turkish imports into Armenia through Georgia amounted to $336 million in 2024 and $367 million in 2025, according to Armstat, UN Comtrade and OEC.
Turkish public discourse has carried criticism of Azerbaijan. Opinion polls indicate that about 25% of respondents in Turkey view Azerbaijanis negatively.
During the football diplomacy period, footage from Bursa showed Azerbaijani state symbols being thrown into rubbish bins. Baku dealt with the matter behind closed doors and did not take it into public information disputes.
Baku has for decades defended Turkey at international venues, including on the events of 1915, and has built contacts with Northern Cyprus.
Azerbaijan does not obstruct the opening of the borders, treating the Armenia-Turkey and Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization tracks as processes that can run in parallel if the steps are coordinated. The sequence is the removal of territorial claims to Azerbaijan from Armenia's Constitution, the signing of the peace treaty initialed in the United States, and only then the simultaneous opening of the borders.
Hakan Fidan, the head of Turkish diplomacy, has repeatedly said that full normalization with Yerevan is inseparable from a durable peace with Baku, so that the conflict is not left frozen.
