Anadolu Agency, Turkey
Oct 17 2014
Difficult journey: Armenian, Turkish reporters engage
17 October 2014 12:43 (Last updated 17 October 2014 12:44)
Anadolu Agency joins a project to bring Turkish and Armenian reporters
to each others’ countries on a challenging journey to explore
relations between these troubled neighbors
By Handan Kazanci
IZMIR, Turkey
“If, fifteen years ago, someone had told me that I would be working
on Armenia-Turkey relations, I would have said: ‘No, you are joking’.”
This was the view of one of the organizers of a new engagement program
which has brought together 18 journalists and bloggers – 10 from
Armenia and eight from Turkey – to spend a fortnight travelling around
these two countries which share a divided and troubled past.
Vazgen Karapetyan, 44, studied medicine but never practiced, claiming
it was difficult to find a job in Armenia just after its independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991.
He is the deputy director of the Yerevan-based Eurasia Partnership
Foundation, a mainly U.S. and E.U.-backed institution.
The tour claims that it will provide an opportunity for participants
to explore the neighboring country while rediscovering their own
nation.
Relations between Ankara and Yerevan have historically been poor owing
to bitter disagreements over events in 1915 which the Armenian
diaspora and government describe as ‘genocide’, fuelling demands for
compensation.
Turkey says that, although Armenians died during deportations in 1915,
many Turks also lost their lives in attacks carried out by Armenian
gangs in Anatolia.
In April this year, Turkey’s then-prime minister – now president –
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, became the first Turkish statesman to offer
condolences for the Armenian deaths.
As diplomatic ties between Ankara and Yerevan stall, engagement
between the two countries is now mainly through non-governmental
groups and civil society.
Karapetyan’s family is originally from Turkey’s eastern city of Van
which was once an important center of Armenian culture.
When Karapetyan had a chance to visit Istanbul for the first time in
2004, he didn’t want it “because I was prejudiced about Turks and
Turkey.”
“I said I would never visit eastern Turkey, historical Armenian land,
because it is painful,” he adds.
Speaking in Turkey’s Aegean province of Izmir he says: “I couldn’t
imagine even talking with a Turkish person because Turks were our
enemies. When I started to communicate with Turkish intellectuals, I
saw that it wasn’t true.”
Karapetyan has since been working on normalization projects, first
between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia and then Armenia and Turkey,
that bring together civil society and non-governmental organizations.
He recalls his first visit to Van in eastern Turkey where his
grandfather was born.
“It was ok,” he says, reflectively. “I wouldn’t say it was painful, no.”
“My grandfather, who died in 1994, had always dreamed about going back
to his hometown, to see the Armenian Cathedral of the Holy Cross on
Akdamar Island in Lake Van. It was gorgeous. It was also reconstructed
under the current [Turkish] administration.”
According to Karapetyan, Armenia was a closed society during the
Soviet era and the 1915 events were not openly discussed as a result
of Russian central government policies until 1965 when Moscow
permitted the building of a memorial in Yerevan.
Turkish-Armenian relations also mean Armenian-Azerbaijan relations as
Turkey closed its border in 1993 to protest Yerevan’s occupation of
Nagorno-Karabakh, a disputed territory between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“When the Turkish government decided to close the border, it was
perceived in Armenia as a hostile step. It increased the notion that
Azerbaijanis and Turks are the same and they are against Armenia,”
says Karapetyan.
Turkey’s foreign ministry says Ankara was one of the first to
recognize the independence of Armenia in 1991 and “actively supported
the country’s integration with regional and Euro-Atlantic
organizations.”
“It is not only an Azerbaijan-Armenia problem, there is also Russia,”
says Mensur Akgun, a professor from Istanbul Kultur University, who
adds that today Moscow almost wholly controls Armenia’s security, for
example at airports.
Pointing out that Armenia agreed to become part of a Russia-led custom
union on October 10, Akgun foresees that Moscow’s influence in the
Caucasus country will increase.
The Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union will come into force on January
1, 2015 and it is seen as an alternative to the European Union for
Russia and former Soviet countries.
One of the Armenian participants in the project is Gayane Arustamyan,
a 44-year-old freelance journalist who was born in Nagorno Karabakh:
“The new custom union limits the independence of Armenia,” she says.
Arustamyan points to Russian influence on Armenia-Turkey relations:
“The question of influence on the Caucasus becomes an issue for
Russia,” she says.
” Armenia is on the verge of losing its independence. It depends on
Russia. InArmenia people are demanding a halt to this process. The
opposition doesn’t want to be part of custom union.
“I am one of those people who are against it. Because it doesn’t
matter how small your country is you should govern yourself,” she
adds.
In May this year, Turkey’ current prime minister, then-foreign
minister, penned an article for British newspaper The Guardian. Ahmet
Davutoglu recalled a protocol signed in Zurich on October 10, 2009 –
derailed at the last moment – which would have normalized relations
between Turkey and Armenia.
Davutoglu wrote: “I believe we now have the opportunity to recapture
the engagement and conciliation that eluded us in 2009.”
“What we share is a ‘common pain’ inherited from our grandparents,” he added.
Although political relations almost halted, discussing
Turkish-Armenian relations now is different than in the past,
according to Akgun.
In Armenia, economic conditions have also colored the political
debate. The collapse of the Soviet Union lowered the living standards
in Armenia.
“Starting from 1991 to 1995 we had two hours of electricity a day.
Natural gas supply was cut down. One-fourth of the population left for
Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and also small groups of people preferred
to emigrate to Turkey,” says project organizer Karapetyan.
Although the land border is still closed, there is some trade between
the two countries through Georgia, says Karapetyan.
In 2008 Turkey had no exports to Armenia, according to the Turkish
Statistical Institute. This has since increased, if only marginally.
In 2009, exports were $2,000 but in 2012 they reached a high point of
$241,000, according to Turkstat, Turkey’s statistics institution.
“In Armenia, there are a lot of goods and constriction materials which
were made in Turkey,” says Karapetyan.
Another traveller is Meri Musinyan, 37, from Yerevan who works for
state-owned Public Radio of Armenia.
According to Musinyan, who visited Turkey for the first time last
October, ordinary people living in the two countries have a huge role
to play in normalizing relations.
“This kind of visits are very important because governments make their
politics but the ordinary people should talk to each other,” she says.
“I have met a lot of people who are open-minded and very open to
discussing things which were dangerous to discuss before” she
explained, adding that she was not aware that in Turkey the new
generation and intellectuals were more ready to discuss the 1915
events.
David Vardazaryan, 30, is a blogger for a leading Armenian news-site,
Tert.am. Speaking about speculation on the 1915 events he says that
whenever Western countries want to press Turkey on something they use
the issue of 1915.
“I can clearly see this; France or the U.S. do this,” he says.
Vardazaryan believes in the Armenia-Azerbaijan or Armenia-Turkey
normalization process.
“It would never have been guessed that someday France and Germany – in
conflict and territorial disputes for hundreds of years – would live
peacefully,” he says.
“So, if they did this then, it means there is a hope for the Caucasus,” he adds.
Next week Turkish reporters – including the Anadolu Agency – will
report from inside Armenia.