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Turkey Makes Overtures to Minorities, but Old Enmities Linger

July 13, 2016 By administrator

 The unfinished Statue of Humanity, a monument to Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, in Kars, Turkey, in 2009. It was demolished in 2011. Credit Mustafa Ozer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

The unfinished Statue of Humanity, a monument to Armenian-Turkish reconciliation, in Kars, Turkey, in 2009. It was demolished in 2011. Credit Mustafa Ozer/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

By CELESTINE BOHLENJULY 12, 2016

(nytimes) KARS, Turkey — The history of this city, about 30 miles from the border with Armenia, may best be told through its former Armenian cathedral, the Church of the Holy Apostles, poised at the base of an imposing fortress.

Built in the 10th century by an Armenian king, it was turned into a mosque three times and once into a Russian Orthodox church. It was briefly resurrected as an Armenian church in 1919 before the modern secular Turkish state expropriated it in 1921, eventually turning it into a petroleum depot, then into a museum, then again into a mosque.

Now, it is mostly closed: Many Muslims go instead to a holier shrine next door. According to Armenian news reports, it might be converted into either a cultural center or even a church, but it is unclear who would come, given that virtually no Armenian Christians are left in Kars.

The city has experienced even more violent turnover than its cathedral. The Ottomans and the Russians were here — but also the Byzantines, the Seljuk Turks, the Georgians, the Persians and the Mongols. Populations were imported, expelled and massacred.

The Armenian genocide of 1915 was the region’s most chilling atrocity, but there were others as Muslims fled Russian-occupied territories in the late 19th century, and Christians later escaped the returning Turks.

These old enmities are never far below the surface. In the nearby city of Igdir, Turkey built a monument in 1999 to commemorate Turkish victims of 20th-century massacres. A gargantuan monument to Armenian-Turkish reconciliation was torn down in Kars in 2011.

Still, there are suggestions that history is finally getting its due. Signs at the ancient ruins of Ani, right on the border, acknowledge that the vast site was the capital of an Armenian kingdom in the 10th and 11th centuries with a population of 100,000.

Although Turkey continues to deny the Armenian genocide and threatens to punish countries — most recently Germany — that recognize it, attitudes toward its multiethnic population and its multilayered history loosened up in the early years of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s 13-year rule, which he began as prime minister.

The Armenian question, once taboo, became a topic of academic seminars and open discussion.

“After a period of huge ignorance, people now know more, and once they know, you can’t turn back,” said Hugh Pope, an expert on Turkey at the International Crisis Group in Brussels.

Mr. Erdogan’s Islamist party, Justice and Development, operating in a majority-Muslim country, took a more lenient approach to minority rights in the early 2000s, when Turkey was actively pursuing membership in the European Union. “They are comfortable making concessions because they are the overwhelmingly dominant culture,” said Henri Barkey, director of the Middle East program at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington.

An Armenian church was reopened in 2010 on the shores of Lake Van, but services are held only once a year. The restoration of a synagogue in Erdine was completed last year, though the local Jewish community left long ago. Several minority languages — including Kurdish — have been taught in schools since 2013.

And yet, even these meager initiatives have been met with protests from parts of Turkish society. In 2010, a Turkish nationalist leader ostentatiously went to Ani to hold prayers at a ruined mosque to protest the reopening of the Armenian church on Lake Van.

And since 2013, as Mr. Erdogan tightened his authoritarian rule, initiating a campaign against Kurdish militants and a frontal attack against Turkey’s independent news media, his overtures to other minorities have diminished, according to Hamit Bozarslan, a Turkey specialist at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences in Paris. He cited the cancellation last year of a colloquium on the Armenian genocide at a Turkish university.

In an apparent attempt to break out of Turkey’s recent diplomatic isolation, Mr. Erdogan took a sudden initiative last month to improve relations with Israel and Russia.

But an opening of the Turkish-Armenian border, closed since 1993 over the conflict in nearby Nagorno-Karabakh, is not considered likely anytime soon.

“Erdogan has to be careful with what he does,” Mr. Barkey said. “There is still a lot of hostility between these groups.”

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/13/world/europe/turkey-armenia-kurds-kars.html?_r=0

Filed Under: Articles, Genocide Tagged With: Armenia, kars, Turkey

Turkish Radical Threatens to ‘Hunt for Armenians’ In Streets of Kars

June 25, 2015 By administrator

the notorious Grey Wolves activist Tolga Adıgüzel

the notorious Grey Wolves activist Tolga Adıgüzel

KARS—The head of the local branch of the notorious Grey Wolves, Tolga Adıgüzel has threatened that his group would “hunt for Armenians” in Kars, after world-renowned pianist Tigran Hamasyan performed a concert at the ruins of Ani, Ermenihaber.am reported, citing Turkish Radikal daily.

Adıgüzel went on to accuse Armenians of organizing what he called “the events of 1915” and “Khodjaly.

“What should we do now? Should we start a hunt for Armenians in the streets of Kars?” asked Adıgüzel.

He urged Armenians “not to test the patience of Turks.” He added that “Turks, for example, cannot go to Armenia and freely organize an event at a sacred site for Armenians.” He threatened to take necessary measures “if events repeat.”

Within the framework of the Luys I Luso program, Tigran Hamasyan will perform Armenian musical selections in 100 churches in Turkey, Armenia, Georgia, Lebanon, France, Belgium, Sweden, the Czech Republic, Great Britain, Germany, Luxemburg, the United States and Russia.

The program is a new interpretation of Armenian religious music from the 5th to the 20th centuries, which will be released on a CD in September 2015.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Armenian, Grey Wolves, kars, threatens, Turkey

Erdoğan to pay sculptor compensation over ‘monstrosity’ comment “symbolize Turkish-Armenian friendship”

March 3, 2015 By administrator

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

symbolize Turkish-Armenian friendship

symbolize Turkish-Armenian friendship

A court has ordered President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to pay 10,000 Turkish Liras to the artist responsible for a sculpture in the northeastern province of Kars, which he had demanded the removal of and described as a “monstrosity.”

During a Jan. 8, 2011 visit to Kars, then Prime Minister Erdoğan slammed the city’s new 35-meter-tall “Monument to Humanity,” created by sculptor Mehmet Aksoy.

An Istanbul court ruled on March 3 for Erdoğan to pay 10,000 liras in moral indemnities to Aksoy, partially accepting the 100,000 liras case Aksoy had filed against Erdoğan.

While Aksoy’s attorney defended their 100,000 liras case by saying that labeling the sculpture a “monstrosity” was an insult to Aksoy, Erdoğan’s attorney claimed that it was not as an insult, but rather a critique.

The sculpture debate entered Kars’ agenda in 2005 when then Mayor Naif Alibeyoğlu, of the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), tasked Aksoy with building a monument that would symbolize Turkish-Armenian friendship. The project included two figures facing each other, with an open hand facing them.

Alibeyoğlu, however, decided in 2008 to switch ranks and join the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP). While the monument was still under construction that year, the Council of Monuments decided to stop its installation, arguing that the monument’s ground was actually a historical site. The monument was dismantled in the subsequent years, as its site was declared a protected area.

Filed Under: News Tagged With: compensation, Erdogan, kars, sculptor, Turkey

Famous Turkish heart surgeon shot in gun attack

August 24, 2014 By administrator

KARS – Doğan News Agency  

n_70828_1Doctors at Kars State Hospital said Sözmez’s condition was not life-threatening. AA Photo

Famous heart surgeon Bingür Sönmez has been injured in a gun attack after assailants opened fire in the eastern province of Kars’ Sarıkamış district.

Sözmez, who is the head of the Sarıkamış Cooperation Group, was attending a ceremony in the district on Aug. 24. The assailants, reportedly two people, first shouted his name and then shot him in the leg and arm when he turned toward them.

Doctors at Kars State Hospital said Sözmez’s condition was not life-threatening.

The attacker who shot the surgeon was İlhan Özbilen, the former mayor of Sarıkamış, who reportedly has a conflict with Sönmez over the ceremonies for the commemoration of the Sarıkamış martyrs, who died during World War I. The second person in the attack was Özbilen’s nephew, reports said.

Özbilen has been sen to police station after being detained.

Kars Gov. Günay Özdemir has confirmed the former mayor’s detention.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: gun attack, kars, Turkey

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