TURKISH DAILY ON ARMENIAN VACATIONERS

news.am
Nov 11 2009
Armenia

Armenian travel agents offer tours to Georgia, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy
and Jordan among other countries, but 70 percent of Armenians that
fly out of their country seem to prefer Turkey, especially Antalya,
writes the Turkish Today’s Zaman.

"Armenians coming to Turkey may be a sign of normalization and
accepting facts of life like swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Any
citizen of a landlocked country would feel the same — living in
Ankara and dreaming of the Mediterranean all year long. This longing
is evident in the posters of Antalya’s attractive sun-drenched beaches
hanging on the walls of buildings in Yerevan," the source writes.

"While it is a dream destination for some, it is a provocation
for others… It did not take too long for a youth group from the
nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Dashnaktsutyun, to
rally for the removal of those posters. They went to the Yerevan
mayor’s office and demanded that the Antalya posters be brought down
and not hung up again. The mayor’s office has not yet acted on the
request. If the borders are opened soon, they will never be brought
down," the source writes.

"The nationalists’ logic against traveling and vacationing in Turkey
in general and in Antalya in particular is just like the Turkish
leftists’ logic: Every penny that goes to the ‘enemy’ will return
to us as arms and aggression or exploitation. This must be the
universal language of all nationalists and chauvinists… Another
slogan shared by the nationalists on both sides of the border says:
‘Turkey shouldn’t have won us over.’ Turkish nationalists said the
same thing when nearly three dozen militants belonging to the notorious
terrorist organization, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), came from
Iraq and surrendered to Turkish authorities. As promised, they were
interrogated but due to a lack of criminal records they were released.

They returned to their hometowns with joy and were greeted with
public demonstrations. This was enough to forget why they came back:
to surrender and end hostilities. The government was accused of
giving the impression that the mighty Turkish army was defeated by
the terrorists and all that nonsense," Today’s Zaman writes.

"Government employees are not officially warned against vacationing
in Turkey…The Armenian Ministry of the Economy is encouraging
competitive domestic tours to destinations like Lake Sevan, the
mountain resort of Tsakhkadzor, the mineral water spa of Jermuk and
the historical Nagorno-Karabakh region. Presently vacation packages
to these sights start at about $700 while Antalya offers a week of
good service, sea and sun for only $450," writes the newspaper.

"Well, you may be a patriot, but there is nothing better than a good
warm vacation after a whole year’s hard work, especially when your
old foe is serving you with a friendly smile," the source writes.