TURKISH, ARMENIAN JOURNALISTS TRAVELING THROUGHOUT TURKEY, ARMENIA AND GEORGIA

armradio.am
30.05.2012 11:33

A group of Turkish and Armenian journalists are traveling throughout
Turkey, Armenia and Georgia from May 24 to June 6 in order to gain
first-hand insight into their neighbors and to report in-depth about
Turkish-Armenian relations from the field.

The group is scheduled to visit six places in Turkey: Ä°stanbul,
Malatya, Kayseri, Cappadocia, Ankara and Kars. Following these visits
in Turkey, the group will travel to Armenia, where they will spend
a week visiting cities and villages across the country, including
Gyumri, Goris, Sevan and Yerevan.

Organized by the Global Political Trends Center (GPoT) of Ä°stanbul
Kultur University in partnership with the Yerevan-based Eurasia
Partnership Foundation as part of the Support to Turkey-Armenia
Rapprochement project and funded by the United States Agency
for International Development (USAID), the Turkish-Armenian Media
Reporting Bus Tour aims to establish a network for future reporting
on Turkish-Armenian relations.

The group of 15 journalists started their tour in Ä°stanbul on
Thursday, visiting the Armenian Patriarchate of Constantinople and
the Hrant Dink Foundation, which was established in 2007 after the
assassination of Armenian-Turkish journalist Hrant Dink, who was shot
dead outside his newspaper’s office in Å~^iÅ~_li on Jan. 19, 2007.

“Internal dynamics are very important in Turkey. I believe that Hrant
Dink’s assassination changed the dynamics in Turkey. Ten years ago, no
one spoke about their origins. Now, people in Turkey are questioning
their origins,” said Nora Mildanoglu, a member of the foundation,
adding that change should not come from above but below. Mildanoglu
also said that the problems between Armenians and Turks should not
be solved by third parties and that both countries should discuss
their problems.

The journalists also met with Rober KoptaÅ~_, editor-in-chief of Agos,
a weekly newspaper printed in both Turkish and Armenian.

Following their visit to Ä°stanbul, the journalists traveled to
Malatya, Dink’s birthplace, where they had the opportunity to visit
old Armenian settlements and meet Turkish citizens of Armenian origin.

Serdar Boyacı, who is a Turkish citizen of Armenian descent and the
head of the Malatya Armenians’ Organization (HAYDER), welcomed the
journalists on Saturday and informed the group as to the situation of
Armenians in Malatya as well as his organization’s work regarding the
Armenian cemetery there. Boyacı stated that there are approximately
60 Turkish Armenians living in Malatya, adding that his organization’s
main goal is to restore the old Armenian churches there, including
the TaÅ~_horan Church, which is approximately 800 years old, Today’s
Zaman reported.