Turkey has relaxed the flight quota for Armenia to facilitate humanitarian assistance to Georgia and to enable those who want to leave the country to fly out, Hurriyet daily reported on Tuesday.

- 20 / 08 / 2008 08:15

Turkey has relaxed the flight quota for Armenia to facilitate humanitarian assistance to Georgia and to enable those who want to leave the country to fly out, Hurriyet daily reported on Tuesday.

Turkey began to allow the flights over its airspace both from Armenia to other countries and from other countries to this country.

Before the Russia-Georgia conflict, the quota allowed only charter flights from the Turkish cities of Istanbul and Trabzon, and aircraft from the West generally routed through Georgian and Russian airspace.

It is not clear whether this quota change would be in place until the football game between Turkey and Armenia in Yerevan.

Turkey is due to play Armenia in a World Cup qualifier on Sept 6.

Turkey is among the first countries that recognized Armenia when it declared its independency.

However there is no diplomatic relations between two countries, as Armenia presses the international community to admit the so-called "genocide" claims instead of accepting Turkey's call to investigate the allegations, and its invasion of 20 percent of Azerbaijani territory despite U.N. Security Council resolutions on the issue.