The State Revenue Committee Orders the Project for the Margara Customs Post on the Armenian-Turkish Border

The State Revenue Committee has ordered the construction project for the Margara customs post on the Armenian-Turkish border. The information was reported by the "Hraparak" publication.

On May 25, the State Revenue Committee signed a contract with "Arbak and Sons" LLC for the preparation of project documentation. The value of the contract is 28 million 291 thousand dram.

The procurement was carried out through an "urgent single supplier" procedure, for which permission was obtained from the government on April 21, 2023, following an executive decision. After the completion of the project, construction work will commence, to be carried out by "Artkon" LLC. This company, by the way, constructed the modular section of the Nork Infectious Diseases Hospital.

The cost of construction work, as well as necessary equipment and property value, including technical and authorial supervision and project expertise, is estimated by the State Revenue Committee to be 732 million 805 thousand dram.

According to the technical specifications of the contract signed between the State Revenue Committee and "Arbak and Sons" LLC, the Margara customs post will include a single-story service hall, two automobile processing booths, two rest areas for shift changes, a single-story inspection building, parking spaces, platforms, inter-territorial roads, two control checkpoints, and a single-story storage building.

According to the State Register of Legal Entities, "Arbak and Sons" LLC, which is responsible for the project, was founded on February 15, 2001. The owner and director of the company is engineer Arbak Hovhannisyan.

The contract between the State Revenue Committee and "Arbak and Sons" has been published on the electronic platform armeps.am of the Ministry of Finance.

It should be noted that there are no diplomatic relations between Armenia and Turkey, and the border has been closed since 1993 at Turkey's initiative. The complex relations are due to several factors, including Turkey's support for Azerbaijan on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and its sharp response to the international recognition process of the Armenian Genocide.

Yerevan and Ankara announced in December 2021 that they were ready to take concrete steps toward normalizing relations and both appointed special representatives: Ankara appointed former Turkish ambassador to Washington Serdar Kilic, and Armenia appointed Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Ruben Rubinyan.

The parties agreed to continue negotiations for full normalization without preconditions. Later, Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan announced that, according to agreements reached with the Turkish Foreign Ministry, the Armenian-Turkish border is planned to be opened to citizens of third countries and holders of diplomatic passports by summer.

Additionally, it is worth mentioning that the first meeting of the special representatives of Armenia and Turkey within the framework of the normalization process took place on January 14, 2022, in Moscow, with three subsequent meetings on February 24, May 3, and July 1 in Vienna.