Accused of smuggling books

Asheville Citizen-Times, NC
Aug 19 2005

A court in Yerevan, Armenia, this week handed a two-year suspended
sentence to a Turkish historian from Duke University who tried to leave
the country with centuries-old books, in violation of Armenian law.

Yektan Turkyilmaz, 33, was leaving from Yerevan on June 17, when
Armenian security agents pulled him from his plane. He was carrying
88 books, some of which dated to the 17th century, authorities said.
Armenian law prohibits anyone from taking a book that is more than
50 years old out of the country without permission. Authorities did
not return the books to Turkyilmaz.

Turkyilmaz is the only Turkish scholar to be allowed to study in
Armenia, which has tense relations with Turkey, because of lingering
bitterness over the mass killings of Armenians in Turkey during World
War I and Turkey’s support of Armenia’s regional rival, Azerbaijan.

Turkyilmaz, who was freed after the ruling, told reporters that
he planned to spend another two weeks working in Yerevan before
returning to Istanbul then North Carolina, where he is a doctoral
student at Duke.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress