TURKEY OPENS RESTORED ARMENIAN CHURCH IN GOODWILL GESTURE

Agence France Presse — English
March 29, 2007 Thursday 3:09 PM GMT

Turkey opened a restored ancient Armenian church in the east of the
country on Thursday as part of its efforts to heal ties with Armenia
that have long been poisoned by their common bloody past.

The ceremony follows a 1.9-million-dollar (1.4-million-euro)
restoration of the Church of the Holy Cross on the island of Akdamar —
Akhtamar in Armenian — in the middle of a vast lake in Van province.

Turkish officials have hailed the restoration of the 10th century
edifice as a step towards reconciliation with Armenia, though it will
not function as a religious site.

A 20-member Armenian delegation, led by Deputy Culture Minister Gagik
Gyurjian, attended Thursday’s ceremony as guests of Turkish Culture
Minister Atilla Koc.

Bilateral contacts are rare between the two neighbours who have no
diplomatic relations and whose border has remained closed for more
than a decade. Turkish and Armenian officials usually meet on the
sidelines of international gatherings.

The head of Armenia’s Apostolic Church, Karekin II, however declined
Ankara’s invitation to attend because the restored church was being
converted into a museum and the ceremony would be a non-religious one.

Turkey has so far ignored calls by the Armenian community to place
a cross on the church’s dome and treats the edifice as a historical
monument rather than a place of worship.

In an address to the gathering, Patriarch Mesrob II, the spiritual
leader of Turkey’s tiny Armenian community, urged the Ankara government
to allow periodic services at the church, which he said would help
Turkish-Armenian reconciliation and boost regional tourism.

"A religious service to be held once a year, for example, and a
subsequent festival on Akdamar would draw people scattered throughout
the world to this island to pray," the patriarch said. "Thus, I hope,
steps can be taken that will one day establish the atmosphere of
dialogue between the two peoples that has so far eluded us."

The patriarch said that he had sent a letter to Prime Minister Recep
Tayyip Erdogan to that effect.

Queried by reporters on the patriarch’s request, Koc said the issue
was not in his jurisdiction.

The Church of the Holy Cross was built between 915 and 921 during the
reign of Armenian King Gagik I of Vaspurakan and is considered one
of the most prominent examples of Armenian architecture from that era.

It was abandoned after World War I when, Armenia claims, up to 1.5
million Armenians perished in systematic deportations and killings
by the Ottoman Turks.

Turkey, the successor of the Ottoman Empire, categorically denies
claims of genocide and says thousands of Turks and Armenians were
killed in civil strife during 1915-1917 when Armenians took up arms
for independence in eastern Anatolia and sided with Russian troops
invading the crumbling empire.

Much to Turkey’s ire, many countries have recognised the killings
as genocide.

The dispute has strained Turkish-Armenian ties.

Ankara recognised Yerevan’s independence in 1991 but no diplomatic
relations were established because of Armenian efforts to have the
killings internationally acknowledged as genocide.

In 1993, Turkey also shut its border with Armenia in a show of
solidarity with its close ally Azerbaijan, which was at war with
Armenia over the Nagorny-Karabakh enclave, dealing a heavy economic
blow on the impoverished nation.

Timid efforts at Turkish-Armenian reconcilitaion suffered a setback
in January when journalist Hrant Dink, one of Turkey’s most prominent
ethnic Armenians, was shot dead in Istanbul by an ultra-nationalist
teenager.