Armenia, Turkey resume first flights in two years

Turkiye and Armenia, Historic rivals resumed their commercial flights as part of cautious efforts to warm their frozen ties

Armenia and Turkey have no diplomatic relations, a closed land border and a deep-seated hostility rooted in the mass killing of Armenians under the Ottoman Empire during World War I.

But in December, the two countries appointed special envoys to normalise relations, spurred by support from regional powerbroker Russia and Armenia's arch-for Azerbaijan.

The push came after a year after Azerbaijan used the help of Turkish combat drones to recapture most of the territory it lost to ethnic Armenians in a 1990s war in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

A Russian-brokered truce that ended the second conflict removed Turkey's main objection to talking to Armenia -- namely, Yerevan's support for the local Nagorno-Karabakh government's claim of independence from Azerbaijan.

The special envoys met in Moscow last month for a "constructive" first round of talks that skirted the issue of Turkey's refusal to recognise the 1915-16 killings of more than a million Armenians as genocide.

The neighbours agreed to resume flights at around the same time.

The first flight operated by Moldova's low-cost carrier FlyOne landed in a cold and drizzly Istanbul to a warm reception from airport officials, who welcomed passengers with flowers and chocolates.

"We think these flights are important for preserving ties between the Armenian community in Istanbul and Armenia," FlyOne's Armenia branch chief executive Aram Ananyan told reporters after disembarking the flight.

An overwhelming majority of the 50,000-70,000 Armenians in Turkey live in Istanbul, a megalopolis of 16 million people.

A flight run by Turkey's Pegasus Airlines took off from another Istanbul airport for Yerevan a few hours later, watched by a swarm of Turkish and Azerbaijani reporters.