Turkey denies Macron border crossing request

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkey has denied reports that French President Emmanuel Macron requested permission to cross the Turkey-Armenia land border following his visit to Yerevan. A source at the Turkish Foreign Ministry described the claims as “false” and warned against turning the Armenia-Turkey normalization process into “a tool of domestic politics for any country,” according to Turkiye Today.

A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official told the Anka news agency that the reports do not correspond to reality, Factor.am reported.

“When the border opens, Turkey will decide who crosses and who does not. We do not want to waste time on such debates. We do not want the Turkey-Armenia normalization process to become a discussion exploited for any country’s domestic politics,” the official said.

The denial followed claims by Visegrád 24 that “Macron had planned to enter Turkey from Armenia by land through the long-closed border and that Ankara had initially given a green light, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan categorically rejected the request.” The report also suggested that such a crossing, if permitted, “would have been an unprecedented symbolic opening facilitated by a third party.”

According to the report, the information had initially been circulated by Azerbaijani media outlets. They claimed that Macron, while in Yerevan, had intended to make a symbolic political gesture by traveling to Turkey through the closed land border in order to meet Erdogan. Several informed sources allegedly told AZfront that the visit had been preliminarily coordinated with certain Turkish officials.

The reports emerged after Macron publicly called in Yerevan for the opening of all regional borders, including those between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Turkey.

“Borders must be opened, all borders, and they must be fully opened. This is what will unlock full economic opportunities and ensure paths to peace in the South Caucasus, rather than imperial conflicts,” Macron said at the Yerevan Dialogue forum.

He also described the South Caucasus as a potential connectivity hub between Europe, Central Asia and the Middle East, while calling Armenia’s “pivot toward Europe” both “brave and necessary.” Macron said the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war exposed the unreliability of Russian security guarantees.

“I know that for a long time many believed Armenia’s destiny could only exist under Russia’s so-called protective wing. But the 2020 war showed that this protection was not as reliable as many thought,” he said.

During Macron’s state visit to Yerevan, Armenia and France signed a joint declaration on strategic partnership. Armenia also signed a similar declaration with the United Kingdom during a meeting between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the sidelines of the 8th European Political Community summit.