Turkey has closed its airspace for Armenian planes. It should be noted that the routes of airliners from Yerevan to at least southern Europe pass through Turkish airspace. Therefore, in connection with such a decision of Turkey, the “Yerevan hub” for the Russians was closed.
According to the Turkish media, the closure of the airspace was announced: “at the top”. This statement was made by the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu. “We will let aircraft into our country if necessary, but we will not allow liners and private jets to fly through our space while the provocations by Armenia against Turkey and Azerbaijan continue,” the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry said. He also emphasized that if “provocations do not stop”, Turkey may resort to other measures.
At the same time, the reason for the scandal, as Çavuşoğlu stated in the same address, was the opening in Yerevan of a monument of the 1920s, which participated in the Nemesis operation, the main purpose of which was to attack the leaders of the then Ottoman Empire of Turkey.
As the head of the Turkish Foreign Ministry stated, “a monument in Yerevan was dedicated to terrorists,” and this, in his opinion, cancels all steps “regarding the normalization of relations between Turkey and Azerbaijan with Armenia.”
Let us add that Yerevan has not only become a “native home” for a significant number of Russian resettlers. But also, more importantly, next summer season some tour operators planned to use it as a transfer hub for sending Russian tourists to European countries, in particular to Greece.