ARMENIANS GOBBLE UP TURKISH GOODS
The Daily Star
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Monday, September 10, 2007
YEREVAN: Turkish trucks loaded with goods are a common sight on the
winding highways of Armenia, showing that for many Armenians the
desire for a bargain outweighs historic hatred.
"What’s important for me are the quality and the price of the goods,
not where they come from," said Yerevan resident Suren, 32, who
recently bought a Turkish-made washing machine.
Turkish goods are flooding into Armenia despite a long history of
antagonism between Armenians and Turks, closed borders and diplomatic
tensions between Ankara and Yerevan.
Only 25 kilometers from the Turkish border, Yerevan should be a
short drive for the truckers. But with Armenia under a Turkish trade
embargo and the border sealed, they instead have to take a circuitous
route through neighboring Georgia to haul home appliances, building
materials and other goods to Yerevan.
Turkey banned exports to Armenia and closed the border in 1993 in
a show of solidarity with ally Azerbaijan, which was at war with
Armenian-backed separatists over the territory of Nagorno Karabakh. And
angered by Armenia’s campaign for international recognition of mass
killings of Armenians under the Ottomans as genocide, Ankara has also
refused to establish diplomatic ties with Yerevan.
Yet at the main border crossing between Armenia and Georgia, the queue
of Turkish trucks headed for Yerevan can often stretch for more than
a kilometer.
To get around the embargo, the goods officially change hands in
Georgia, through middlemen or shell companies established by Turkish
exporters.
"There is a huge quantity of Turkish goods today in Armenia," said
Gagik Kocharian, the head of the trade department at Armenia’s Trade
and Economic Development Ministry.
Home appliances, building materials, household goods, clothes and
paper products are the most common Turkish items, he said, and sales
of those goods rose 40 percent in 2006.
Many consumers, Kocharian said, are indifferent to whether the goods
they are buying are Turkish. "People buy brands and very often are
not interested or do not know where a product is made," he said.
Many business leaders on both sides are urging the Armenian and
Turkish governments to work to end the embargo and re-open the border.
"There is great interest from companies on both sides in doing business
with each other. It would be very beneficial for both countries to
reopen the border," said Kaan Soyak, the Turkish co-chairman of the
Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council.
Re-opening the border would not only give Armenian exporters
easier access to Western markets, but also add to export routes
for Turkish companies targeting Azerbaijan and Central Asia, he
said. "Unfortunately, the political establishments on both sides
benefit from the status quo," he said.
Analysts doubt either side will give ground soon.
Winning international recognition of a genocide is one of Armenia’s top
foreign-policy goals. Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kinsmen
died in deportations and systematic killings on the territory of
present-day Turkey in 1915. Turkey categorically rejects the genocide
label and argues that 300,000 Armenians and at least as many Turks died
in civil strife in what was then the Ottoman Empire during World War I.
Turkey is also unlikely to end its staunch support for Azerbaijan in
the dispute over Nagorno Karabakh, an ethnic-Armenian enclave that
broke away from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s and now has de facto
independence. Azerbaijan has imposed its own economic embargo on
Armenia. Despite repeated meetings, Armenian and Turkish diplomats
have failed to break the deadlock.
At a meeting in Istanbul in June, Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanian urged Turkey to open the border, but Turkey insisted on
solving the Karabakh dispute first. Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah
Gul also called on Armenia to support a Turkish proposal to set up
a joint committee of Turkish and Armenian academics to study the
genocide allegations.
And not all Armenians are willing to set political tensions aside in
the name of commerce.
"I do not buy Turkish or Azerbaijani goods, and I absolutely don’t
understand people who don’t care," said Robert Sanasarian, an elderly
Armenian. "Why can’t people just buy locally produced goods, helping
Armenian businesses instead of our opponents?"