Commemorating the victims of the Genocide
By Karine Mangassarian

Yerkir
29 April 05

“For us Ararat was just a mountain like other mountains in the
world. But when I worked with my Armenian friends in Iran and saw
their enthusiasm to climb Mount Ararat on April 24 and when Turkey
did not allow them climb the mountain, I discovered new symbolism
in climbing Ararat. I could not accept that an entire nation can be
rejected the right to climb Ararat.

My Armenian friends’ eyes were filled with tears when they were
rejected and I decided I had to climb Ararat on April 24 to make the
dream of my Armenian friends come true”, Iranian alpinist Mohammad
Nuri told us. He climbed Ararat on April 24 together with his friends
and set up the flag of Ararat alpinism club on the Armenians’ sacred
mountain. The members of the alpinist club had chosen the motto
“To Ararat with Ararat” for their hike.

Member of Ararat alpinism club in Iran Suren Stepanian told the
story about how Turkey had refused to allow the Armenian alpinists
climb mount Ararat. He told that in 2004 he and Mohammad Nuri secretly
climbed Ararat together with their wives. When Suren and his wife took
stones from the top of the mountain Mohammad got very surprised. So
Suren told him about our history. “Our history impressed Mohammad so
much that he decided to climb Ararat on April 24,” Suren says.

Suren says the only reason why the Turkish authorities refused to
allow the Armenian alpinists to climb Mount Ararat was the “-ian”
at the end of their last names. The alpinists had applied to the
Turkish Ministry of Tourism and Culture seeking permission to climb
Mount Ararat on April 24. And they had received official permission.

However, when the group of Iranian alpinists that included the
only Armenian, Suren Stepanian, crossed the Turkish border, they
immediately received a letter from the Turkish Minister of Tourism and
Culture Volkan Boyaz which forbade the three members of the group to
climb Ararat. The Turkish authorities were so intolerant towards the
Armenians that they rejected even the two Iranians whose last names
ended in -ian.

Suren Stepanian says this rejection made the symbolic climb even more
symbolic and memorable. The climbers that were rejected permission
to climb Ararat went to mount Sipan and the two groups simultaneously
conquered Ararat and Sipan. Commenting on the symbolism of the climb,
Mohammad Nuri says that before they climbed Ararat they did not know
much about the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

“We had very scarce information about the Genocide. But now that
we know the history we visited Armenia and went to Tsitsernakaberd
Memorial. I wrote in the Genocide Museum’s guestbook that we have to
try not to stir our old wounds but we have to understand what we are
doing today looking at our past as a mirror. We have to do our best
not to allow such crimes to be forgotten. Let no innocent people become
victims of genocides, let such crimes never repeat,” Mohammad says.

He presented to the Genocide Museum stones that he had brought from
the top of Mount Ararat. The Iranian mountain climbers are now in
Armenia and have decided to climb Aragats. Meanwhile, Iranian Armenian
climber Suren Stepanian keeps hoping that one day the decision to
grant permission to climb the biblical mountain will not depend on
the -ian at the end of one’s last name.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress