Armenia prepares for border openings with Türkiye, Azerbaijan, says official

Armenia’s State Revenue Committee (SRC) has announced its operational readiness for any future scenario involving the potential opening of the country’s borders with Türkiye and Azerbaijan, signalling a pragmatic approach toward regional unblocking efforts.

The head of the SRC, Eduard Hakobyan, made the remarks while speaking to reporters in parliament, where he emphasized the agency’s responsibility in organizing effective customs control regardless of political developments, Caliber.Az reports citing Armenian media.

“Our task is to organise customs control in any scenario. If we talk about unblocking, opening of borders, we just have to be ready for it. We are ready in the sense that we have, for example, [the] Margara border crossing point with appropriate equipment and mechanisms that allow us to adapt to any scenario and carry out customs control,” Hakobyan stated.

The Margara border crossing, located on the Armenian-Turkish frontier, has been at the center of recent technical discussions regarding bilateral normalization, although no formal opening has occurred to date.

Hakobyan also noted that Armenia already employs streamlined customs processes at its borders with Georgia and Iran. These include a risk-based system utilizing “green”, “yellow”, and “red” corridors to assess and manage the movement of goods.

“Based on the analysis of a number of indicators, the risk assessment system sends goods to the ‘green”, ‘yellow’ or ‘red’ path. The ‘green’ path involves a smooth border crossing as the declaration is completed in advance and there are no risks. We have also launched a pilot program—based on data analysis, imported goods are automatically let through as we see that they do not contain risks,” he explained.

By Vafa Guliyeva