WEEKLY EDITOR’S CONVERSATION WITH GUL HIGHLIGHTED IN TURKISH MEDIA

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Tue, Mar 30 2010

ISTANBUL, Turkey (A.W.)-Armenian Weekly editor Khatchig Mouradian’s
"Dispatches from Turkey," a series of five blog posts he wrote during
his trips to Istanbul, Ankara, Kars, and Ani in March, have received
a significant amount of attention not only in Armenia and the diaspora
but also in Turkey.

Aydintasbas’s column dealt with highlights and controversies from
the U.S. delegation’s meeting with President Gul.

Mouradian, who was part of a nine-member delegation of U.S.

commentators and analysts visiting Turkey at the invitation of TEPAV
(Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey), wrote about his
conversation with Turkish President Abdullah Gul, the reactions
to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s statement about deporting
Armenians from Turkey, and several related issues in his dispatches,
which were cited in the mainstream Turkish papers Zaman, Milliyet,
and Hurriyet, among others.

***

In an article in Today’s Zaman titled "Harsh rhetoric heralds
gloomy spring for normalization," which appeared on March 21, an
entire section discusses Mouradian’s "Dispatch #2." This section is
reprinted here.

Spirit, hearts and politics

And yet, damage has been done here and there, and the government
should make clear whether it wants to make peace with only with
citizens of Armenia or the entire Armenian nation, despite the
Armenian Diaspora’s actions, which are hampering the normalization
process-without forgetting its own Armenian citizens, who are not
guests, but people of this country.

Khatchig Mouradian is an Armenian writer who arrived in Turkey on
Wednesday as part of a delegation of U.S. commentators and analysts
visiting the country at the invitation of the Ankara-based Economic
Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV).

In an article posted on the Armenian Weekly website titled "Memleketine
Hosgeldin" (Welcome to Your Country), Mouradian said the title was
inspired by what a Turkish journalist told him when she learned of
his arrival in Turkey.

Recalling Erdogan’s recent remarks, Mouradian argues, "Turkish
diplomats and commentators do not view Armenians as a single monolithic
block, but as three supposedly homogeneous blocks."

Mouradian lists those groups: "The Armenians living in Turkey
[mainly in Istanbul] comprise the first group. … In Turkey, these
Armenians are regarded as ‘our Armenians,’ or the ‘good Armenians,’
as long as they do not speak out about the genocide and the continued
discrimination they face. … The citizens of Armenia, the second
group, are, according to the dominant rhetoric in Turkey, the
‘neighbors’ (the ‘poor Armenians’), who are under difficult economic
conditions and do not mind forgetting the past and moving on, if
the Armenian diaspora leaves them alone. The diaspora Armenians,
the third group, are the ‘bad Armenians’."

Mouradian’s arguments are controversial, but this doesn’t change the
fact that many hearts have been broken.

***

On March 29, Milliyet published an article titled "Cankaya’da neler
konusuldu?" by Asli Aydintasbas, where the author devotes a section
to Mouradian’s conversation with Gul about the Armenian Genocide
following the official meeting.

A shorter version (in English) of the same article appeared in
Hurriyet Daily News under the title "What was really talked about in
Cankaya"? The article begins:

At a meeting with former U.S. Ambassador to Ankara Morton Abromowitz
and the Forbes magazine’s Claudia Rosett, whose statements were
denied over the weekend by the Presidential Office in Cankaya, and
with numerous American commentators, President Abdullah Gul talked
about the pain and sorrow felt during the 1915 Armenian events and
of Turks living in the Balkans. As leaving, he said "I salute your
elderly in the family," to the Armenian decent journalist Khatchig
Mouradian who told the story of his family left Turkey in 1915.

***

On March 19, in a column by Amberin Zaman in Taraf about Erdogan’s
threat to deport Armenians, there was a reference to an earlier
trip taken by Mouradian and Zaman to the Der Zor desert. Below is
the English translation of the concluding paragraph of the column
(the entire column will be published by the Weekly later this week):

I recommend to those who are interested in our history that they
go to the Der Zor desert in Syria. You know, the desert to which
the Committee of Progress and Union sent hundreds of thousands
of Armenians, women, elderly, and children alike. There are other
horrible truths that shine as bright as the sun there. There are
mass graves that the Armenians claim to belong to their ancestors
and bones breaking out of the soil. I saw those bones. I am not
in a position to prove whom they belong to. That is not the main
issue anyway. The main issue is what those bones mean to millions
of Armenians. My Armenian friend Khatchig Mouradian, who was there
with me, said that his biggest dream was to one day pray, mourn, with
his Turkish friends, for his relatives who died in that desert. I can
almost hear the whispers of those tormented souls wandering on Der Zor:
"It is you who are distorting the past

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress