Chicago Tribune, IL
June 22 2005
Scholar’s arrest fuels diplomatic dispute
Turkish man is held on Armenian charges
By Catherine Collins
Special to the Tribune
Published June 22, 2005
ISTANBUL — The arrest of a Duke University doctoral student last
week on charges of trying to smuggle rare books out of Armenia has
stirred concerns among academics and officials and illustrates the
quagmire of Turkish-Armenian relations.
The student, Yektan Turkyilmaz, was the first Turkish citizen ever
given access to the Armenian national archives. He had just concluded
his fourth research trip there Friday when he was arrested before
boarding a plane at the airport in Yerevan, the Armenian capital.
Armen Yeganian of the Armenian Embassy in Washington described the
case as a customs violation and said Turkyilmaz had several books
dating back as far as the 17th Century. But Turkyilmaz’s family and
academic associates said a researcher of his caliber never would try
to steal priceless books.
Because Turkey and Armenia do not have diplomatic relations,
Turkyilmaz initially landed in a diplomatic no-man’s land. University
officials and the U.S. and Turkish governments have taken up his
cause, and Turkey on Tuesday officially requested Turkyilmaz’s
release.
“I believe this case is fundamentally about academic freedom,” said
his academic adviser, Orin Starn, a cultural anthropology professor
at Duke University.
Starn described Turkyilmaz, 33, as “a brilliant and widely respected
young scholar” who has received numerous fellowships to support his
research into nationalism among Turks, Armenians and Kurds in the
dying days of the Ottoman Empire.
His family has not been able to contact Turkyilmaz, though they have
spoken with his friends in Armenia, some of whom were detained and
interrogated, said his sister, Zeynep.
Turkyilmaz’s case is the latest episode in a long-running diplomatic
dispute about what happened to hundreds of thousands of Armenians in
Turkey between 1915 and 1922.
Armenians say that Turkey’s mass deportation of Armenians during
World War I was part of an organized genocide that killed 1.5 million
people. Turkey denies there was any systematic attempt to kill
Armenians.
The Turkish State Archive recently issued a list of more than 523,000
Turks it says were killed by Armenians the same years.
Regardless, it is a dark chapter in Turkish history that until
recently has been discussed rarely and left out of Turkish textbooks
while landing many scholars, journalists and activists in jail.
Turkey’s best-known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, shattered a taboo earlier
this year when he said that 1 million Armenians were murdered in his
country. Days of screaming headlines, death threats and several
lawsuits charging him with insulting the Turkish state followed his
statement.
Turkey has for years engaged in diplomatic scuffles with any country
it suspects of taking the Armenian side. This spring, the Turkish
parliament demanded apologies from the legislatures of the 12
countries that have recognized Armenian claims of genocide.
Gradually, however, partly as a result of efforts to join the
European Union, a door on the past has been opened.
Although Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul insists that the
genocide label is “pure slander,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
has called on all countries to open archives to scholars to determine
once and for all what has happened.
A spokesman at the Turkish Foreign Ministry said he is baffled by the
arrest.
“This is a very strange situation,” the official said, speaking on
condition of anonymity. “From what we know of Turkyilmaz’s research,
it seems he was more sympathetic to the Armenian view than the
Turkish.”