Yerevan November 19
Marianna Mkrtchyan. Ankara allowed 400 Armenian heavy trucks to annually carry cargo from the port of Trabzon. Goksel Gulbey, the head of the organization for '' Against International Baseless Armenian s'' of ASIMDER, said this in an interview with Turkish media.
According to him, the Turkish Embassy in Georgia issued such permission. Earlier, Armenian truckers had to use the Georgian port of Poti for these purposes. But the use of Turkish Trabzon will allow Armenian drivers to save up to $ 600. Goksel Gulbey notes that after the August 2008 war for Armenian heavy vehicles crossing the Georgian-Turkish border, a quota was set. However, recently, due to price issues, Armenian drivers prefer to go to Turkish Trabzon, rather than to Georgian Poti.
According to Turkish law, drivers from Armenia cannot enter Turkey as tourists and must receive a work visa for this. The Armenian side for a long time tried to resolve this issue and at the beginning, the Ukrainian side acted as a mediator. Now the Turkish Embassy in Georgia issues the work visa for Armenian drivers.
"Once a week, an Yerevan-Istanbul flight is operated between Armenia and Turkey. Thousands of Armenians arrive in our country through the territory of Georgia and Iran. More than 70 thousand Armenians work illegally in Turkey. Now our embassy in Georgia lifts the diplomatic embargo. We on the part of ASIMDER ask: What kind of embargo is this, if the drivers continue to arrive? " Gulbey said, reports haqqin.az.
To note, as early as in the summer of 2012, Artur Ghazaryan, director of the program "Promoting the improvement of Armenian-Turkish relations" of the Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs of Armenia, reported that in 2011 two Armenian trucks used the Turkish territory for transit purposes, carrying out cargo transportation. "Today, Turkey annually provides 200 permits to TIR (Transport International Rout) trucks for transit traffic on its territory. However, there is a problem: according to Turkish law, the driver of an Armenian truck, who makes a transit move through Turkey, does work, therefore, it is necessary to issue a work visa. But the visa is issued at the embassy, which is not. Last year's two cases were somehow processed with the help of the Ukrainian side, "informed Ghazaryan.