TURKEY PREPARES FOR CEREMONY TO MARK RENOVATION OF ARMENIAN CHURCH
Selcan Hacaoglu
AP Worldstream
Published: Mar 14, 2007
Turkey may host Armenian officials at a ceremony marking the renovation
of the 1,000-year-old Akhtamar church, one of the finest surviving
monuments of ancient Armenian culture, Turkish media and sources
close to the project said Wednesday.
Turkey has invited Armenian officials to attend the ceremony but it
was not clear whether any of them would show up, sources involved
in the renovation said Wednesday, speaking on condition of anonymity
because authorities had not announced or confirmed the invitations.
Turkey’s foreign ministry said preparations for the ceremony were
continuing. It denied reports in the Turkish media that the government
would allow direct flights between the Armenian capital Yerevan and
the Turkish city of Van for the ceremony.
Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic ties and border crossings
remain closed, but there are regular commercial flights between
Yerevan and Istanbul.
The ceremony will be held on March 29 on the tiny island of Akdamar,
situated on a lake in the eastern city of Van, bordering Iran.
Turkey, under pressure from the European Union to improve its treatment
of minorities, began restoring the church in 2005 after a century of
neglect and decades of political wrangling.
The European Union urged Turkey in 2004 to consider registering
Akhtamar in UNESCO’s World Heritage List and the $1.5 million
restoration, ordered and paid for by the Turkish government, was
intended to send a positive message to Armenia.
The ceremony is expected to be attended by Turkish Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan. Cahit Zeydanli, a subcontractor who supervises the
renovation of the church said that although around 3,000 people would
attend, only 300 of them would be allowed to travel to the tiny island.
Eastern Turkey was once a heartland of Armenian culture and more
than a million Armenians lived in the area at the turn of the 19th
century. But they were driven out by what Armenia contends was a
policy of genocide by Turks.
Akhtamar was one of the most important churches of those ancient
Armenian lands.
The two countries are involved in a long and bitter dispute over
whether the killings of as many as 1.5 million Armenians by Turks at
the beginning of the last century qualifies as genocide or not.
Turkey vehemently denies that the killings were genocide, and is
currently lobbying against a proposed U.S. congressional resolution
that would recognize them as such.