[8] The border starts in the north at the tripoint with Georgia just west of Lake Arpi and proceeds southwards via a series of irregular lines through the Armenian Highlands.

[9] With the 1829 Treaty of Adrianople (ending the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29), by which Russia gained most of modern Georgia, the Ottomans recognised Russian suzerainty over eastern Armenia.

[9][10][11][12] By the Treaty of San Stefano, ending the Russo-Turkish War (1877–1878), Russia gained considerable land in what is now eastern Turkey (termed Western Armenia), extending the Ottoman-Russian frontier south-westwards.

[10][13][14] Russia's gains of Batumi, Kars and Ardahan were confirmed by the Treaty of Berlin (1878), though it was compelled to hand back part of the area around Bayazid (modern Doğubayazıt) and the Eleşkirt valley.

In the chaos following the 1917 Russian Revolution, the new Communist government hastily sought to end its involvement in the war and signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in 1918 with Germany and the Ottoman Empire.

[10] Seeking to gain independence from both empires, the peoples of the southern Caucasus had declared the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic in 1918 and started peace talks with the Ottomans.

[32][33] On February 11, 2023, the border was temporarily opened for the first time in 35 years, to let humanitarian aid from Armenia reach victims of a major earthquake in Turkey.

[3] In July 2022, the Turkish Ministry for Foreign Affairs announced that the two countries, in the context of a general thaw of their relationship, plan to reopen the border "at the earliest possible date", albeit only for third party nationals.