ALEXANDER ISKANDARIAN: HRANT DINK WAS ASSASSINED BECAUSE HE WAS AN
ARMENIAN
YEREVAN, JANUARY 20, NOYAN TAPAN – ARMENIANS TODAY. Hrant Dink was
assassined because he was an Armenian. Alexander Iskandarian, Director
of Caucasian Media Institute, expressed this opinion at the Urbat Club
on January 20. In his words, the image of Hrant Dink was the
embodiment of Armenian-Turkish relations from the viewpoint of not so
much relations between Armenia and Turkey as relations of Turks and
Armenians. And his assassination is symbolic in this sense.
According to Iskandarian, Dink was a very courageous man capable of
swimming against the flow both in Armenian and Turkish environment. He
had his own convictions and was ready to protect them, and even his
death showed what kind of reality is now in Turkey. Iskanadarian
noted that Dink knew that he would be killed sooner or later and he
repeatedly said this in private talks.
In Iskandarian’s words, when he became acquainted with Dink in the mid
1990s in Istanbul, the latter had no passport and the opportunity to
go from Turkey to some other country. Dink told him that he had never
been abroad, but when the interlocutor asked him if he had been to
Armenia, Dink got angry: he considered Malatia, Van, Erzrum, Kars (NT:
these are Western Armenian cities currently in the territory of
Turkey) as Armenia. A. Iskandarian said that Hrant Dink considered
Turkey as his country, an Armenian land where his ancestors lived and
where the crime against his nation was committed. "He struggled not
against Turkey but for making this country a better place,"
A. Iskandarian stated.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
