Armenia holds scholar from Duke over books

News & Observer, NC
June 18 2005

YEREVAN, ARMENIA — A Duke University researcher was detained at
Yerevan airport Friday on suspicion of smuggling antique books out
of Armenia, the National Security Service said.

An official for the security agency, speaking on condition of
anonymity, said Turkish citizen Yektan Turkyilmaz had been arrested
in possession of books dating from the 17th to 20th centuries and
was suspected of seeking to take them secretly on a flight to Turkey.

Turkyilmaz, of Duke University in Durham, is likely to be fined
although the offense he is accused of carries a maximum five-year
jail term, the official said.

Books older than 50 years cannot be taken out of Armenia without
special permission. Turkyilmaz was in Armenia to carry out research in
the Armenian national archives, the first Turk to be allowed to do so.

Turkyilmaz is a doctoral student in Duke’s cultural anthropology
department, according to the department’s Web site. His dissertation
is on the effects of geography and nationhood on Turkey’s society.

Turkyilmaz, a Duke student for five years, is researching the early
part of the 20th century in Turkey and Armenia, said Orin Starn, a
professor in Duke’s cultural anthropology department who is a friend
and adviser to Turkyilmaz.

Starn cast doubt on the accusations that Turkyilmaz, a Turkish citizen
of Kurdish heritage, tried to smuggle books out of Armenia.

Turkyilmaz’s work includes research on the killings of Armenians,
a delicate subject in both countries, Starn said. The first Turk
to gain access to the Armenian national archives, Turkyilmaz had
approached his work on the tense period of history as a scholar.

“He’s been a bridge builder,” Starn said.

No one at Duke or in Turkyilmaz’s family in Turkey has made contact
with him, causing concern.

“My fear is that he has been caught in the middle of an explosive,
long-running conflict,” Starn said.

Armenia and Turkey do not have diplomatic relations because of a
dispute over the killings of Armenians during World War I, which
Armenians say was genocide.

Armenians say some 1.5 million of their people were killed as the
Ottoman Empire forced them from eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923
in a deliberate campaign of genocide.

Turkey says the death count is inflated and insists that Armenians
were killed or displaced in the civil unrest during the collapse of
the Ottoman Empire.