Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

Revue de Presse-Press Review-Berhevoka Çapê-Rivista Stampa-Dentro
de la Prensa-Basm Özeti
nlan. In Turkey / 'TY.1:e
In Istanbu~ the Terror of
1915 Is a Faded Memory
By Stephen Kinzer
New York 1ïmes Service
ISTANBUL- When the Armenian patriarc.h
of Istanbul, Karekin II, died this mont!t, hIS
funeral produced a scene that some foreIgn~rs
found surprising. More than l ,000 Tur~sh
citizens of Armenian background, together ~Ith
senior . diplomats and government offiCIaIs,
Crowded die stately cathedral where a ~ss was
celebrated in Armenian for the repose of his soul..
Although the occasion for the ~eremo~y ~~ sad,
it served as a reminder that despIte the VICIsSItudes
of history, Istanbul' s Armenian minority remains
large and vibrant. ln some parts of the worl~ Turks
and Armenians are viewed as natural enemIes, but
the funeral showed once again that in Istanbul, they
live peacefully together.
There are about 70,000 Armenians in Turker,
nearly all of them in Istanbul.. ~y f~ ~IS
country's largest non-Muslim mmonty, mamtaming
33 churches, 16 schools, several hospitals and a
variety of other institutions. ~gely bec~us~ of
religious traditions on both SIdeS, there IS little
intermarriage. '
"I've never had any problems, and I never felt
different from any other Turkish citizen, " said Ara
Kocunyan, editor of the Armenian-langua~e newspaper
Jan)aJlak, which was founded br his .greatgrandfather
in 1908. "Many ArmenIans 1h the
diaspora have to accentuate their ethnic identity
because they're so far from the homeland. We don 't
bave that problem. We didn't come here from
somewhere else, we're from here."
Relations between Turks and Armenians were
good during much of the Ottoman period, but ~ey
were deeply scarred by massacres of ~enI~s
that pro-Ottoman forces in eas~em Anatolia earned
out in the spring of 1915. DetaIls. o~what happened
then are still hotly debated, but It ISclear that v~
numbers of Armenians were killed or left to die
during forced marches in a burst of what is now
called "ethnic cleansing." .
Armenian nationalists have waged a ~orldwlde
campaign aimed at forcing Turkey to admit that the
Ottoman government committed genocide in 1915,
but successive Turkish leade,rshave refu~ to do so.
ln the 19705 the dispute became so mtense that
Armenian gunmen began killing Turkish diplomats.
For many Armenians in the United S~tes and
elsewhere, the nightmares of 1915 are as mtensely
painful as if they had' happen~ yesterQay, .and
Turkey remains a symbQl of evIl. But ArmenIans
here have concluded that there is no point in dwelling
on the unpleasant past.
"Onereason we don't talk about 1915 is that we
don't know much about it," said Kirkor Dostmeciyan,
an e~ineer and businessman. "To tell
you the truth, I m not really interested. A lot of
things happened in history, and ifyou want to dwell
on them you don 't have time to live in the present or
think about the future ...
TURKEY'S record in dealing with minorities
is decidedly mixed. Turks of Armenian
background, like Kurds, Georgians and
members of other minority groups, are free
're Drom uere' to rise in every field of public or private endeavor
.&-••
..... W f: r j n I but they are expected to consider themselves Turk~
______________________________ first. ITthey insist