YEREVAN, April 29. /TASS/. Yerevan will prolong a ban on imports of Turkish goods to Armenia and will prohibit their sales, Acting Armenian Economy Minister Vahan Kerobyan said at a briefing on Thursday.

"We intend to extend the ban on imports of Turkish goods to the country, as well as their sale, since they are imported and sold using some alternative ways," he noted without specifying how long the proposed restrictions will be in place.

A six-month ban on Turkish imports has been in effect in Armenia since late December 2020. The decree to this effect was adopted by the government, which cited Turkey’s involvement in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict as the reason behind that move.

Armenia’s authorities have said on numerous occasions that Turkey was directly involved in the Nagorno-Karabakh war. According to Yerevan, Ankara not only dispatched military specialists to provide assistance to Azerbaijan but also sent mercenaries from Syrian groups under its control to the conflict zone.

On November 9, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh. According to the document, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides stopped at the positions that they had maintained, and Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the engagement line in Nagorno-Karabakh and along the Lachin Corridor that connects Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. Also, some districts were handed over to Azerbaijan. Baku and Yerevan have disputed Nagorno-Karabakh’s sovereignty since February 1988, when the region declared its secession from the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic.