Rupen Janbazian
Nearly 200 participants filled an auditorium at the Faculty of
Political Science at Ankara University from Nov. 22-23, for a two-day
conference entitled, “The Sealed Gate: Prospects of the Turkey-Armenia
Border.” Organized by the Hrant Dink Foundation, the conference aimed to
address the policy of closed borders and its political, economic,
social, environmental, humanitarian, and regional aspects, along with
prospects for peace-building in the Caucasus.
Opening remarks were made on behalf of the foundation by Rakel Dink,
wife of the late Hrank Dink, and Cengiz Aktar, who for the first time
announced the formation of an Armenian Research Center that will be
launched in the coming months by the Hrant Dink Foundation. Dr. Onur
Ozsoy, chair of the department of economics, welcomed participants on
behalf of Ankara University, and reiterated his belief that the border
between Turkey and Armenia should eventually be opened in order to
ensure peace, stability, and cooperation in the region.
The first session of the conference entitled, “Taking Stock of Sealed
Borders,” was chaired by Prof. Gerard J. Libaridian, and examined the
historical aspects of the closed border between Turkey and Armenia.
Sezai Yazici, a former telecom general director of Kars, presented an
overview of the history of the Turkish-Armenian border before its
closing in 1993, with a focus on the Kars-Gyumri border. Lale Yalcin
Heckmann explored the history of borderlands in the South Caucasus.
Florian Mühlfried, a research fellow at the Max Plank Institute for
Social Anthropology, drew on his experiences in Georgia to present a
recent history of the Georgian-Russian border. The story of a sealed
border leading to cooperation was presented by former Kars mayor Naif
Alibeyoglu, who shared his experiences in trying to bridge the peoples
of Kars and Gyumri. Alibeyoglu initiated the “Statue of Humanity”
project, which was dedicated to the friendship between Turks and
Armenians—and which was famously called a “monstrosity” by then-Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and ordered to be dismantled.
“Sealed Border Accounts” was the title of the second session, chaired
by Professor Ozgen H. Nese. Vahram Danielyan, a literary critic and
professor of modern Armenian literature, presented the closed border
from a literary point of view, exploring boredom as a metaphor for a
Karsian experience in the novels Land of Nairi by Yeghishe Charents and Snow
by Orhan Pamuk. Fabio Salomoni of Koc University spoke about the
memories and identities of those from the Turkish borderlands of Kars
and Igdir, and explored the idea of borderlands as a dis-homogeneous
space. Graduate student Sayat Tekir, who visited the Armavir region of
Armenia and conducted in-depth interviews with residents there,
presented the perceptions of looking at Turkey from the Armenian border,
while Manuk Avetikyan, a graduate from the American University of
Armenia, explored the Yazidi-Armenian community’s perspective of the
closed border.
Turkish political choices in regards to the sealing of the Armenian
border and the shaping of the Nagorno-Karabagh conflict was presented by
journalist and political analyst Vicken Cheterian. Vahram Ter
Matevosyan, a senior research fellow at the department of Turkish
studies of the Armenian National Academy of Sciences, presented the
strategic partnership between Turkey and Georgia, and its implications
on Armenia and the region. The two panelists were part of the session
entitled, “Sealed Border and Neighbors,” chaired by Turkish economist
and academic Guven Sak.
Saturday’s last session entitled, “Sealed Border Beyond Neighbours,”
was chaired by Soli Ozel of Kadir Has University. Thomas de Waal, who is
best known for his 2003 book Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War,
approached the sealed border between Turkey and Armenia from the
Karabagh perspective. He also presented the Turkish translation of his
book, which was recently published by the Hrant Dink Foundation. Later,
Fiona Hill, director of the Center on the United States and Europe and a
senior fellow in the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institute,
presented her paper on the role of the United States and Russia in the
regional politics of the Caucasus.
The conference continued on Sunday, Nov. 23, with a session entitled,
“Open Borders, Open Markets,” chaired by Turkish Industry and Business
Association (TÜSİAD) senior fellow Kemal Kirisci, who explored the
economic aspects of the closed border. Latife Akyuz of Duzce University
presented her paper on the dynamics of ethnicity on the border trade,
with a special focus on the Laz and Hemshin people. Ankara native Ussal
Sahbaz presented the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey’s
(TEVAP) study on economic cooperation opportunities between Turkey and
Armenia, which focused on the possibility of cooperation on the
information technology (IT) and tourism sectors. Zumrut Imamoglu of
Bahcesehir presented the findings of a study by the Hrant Dink
Foundation on the socio-economic impacts of the sealed border in the
region.
Entitled “Open Borders, Open Minds–I and II,” the sixth and seventh sessions of the conference focused on the opening of mental
borders and were chaired by Amberin Zaman, Turkey correspondent for the
Economist, and Dr. Razmik Panossian, director of the department of
Armenian communities for the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. Dr. Zeynep
Akture, whose academic interests involve architecture and
historiography, presented the importance of monuments that have been
built on both sides of the Turkey-Armenia border and their implications
on the normalization process. Ozlem Sendeniz of Ankara University
presented her paper on Armenians and Armenia in the collective memories
of the people of Igdir, the only city in Turkey to border three
countries. Tamar Arilei, head of the conflict management program at Tel
Hai College, brought yet another interesting element into the opening of
mental borders: the experience of cross-border enterprises between
Jordan and Israel.
Pinar Karakilcik, a research assistant at Istanbul University whose
primary focus is comparative linguistics, examined the border in terms
of languages, paying special attention to the state of the Armenian
language both inside and outside of Turkey today. Araz Kojayan, a
graduate student from the American University of Beirut whose paper
focused on Lebanese-Armenian youth visiting Western Armenia, shed light
on the imagined border between the Armenian Diaspora and Turkey. Stafan
Williamson Fa and Ben Wheeler, co-founders of the Sayat Nova Project, a
non-profit group that aims to preserve and promote the diverse musical
dialects of the Caucasus, presented their paper entitled, “Mountains of
Tongues: (Re)representing the Musical Dialects of the Caucasus.”
Participants had a chance to hear some of the recordings made by the
project, which involves over 50 musicians playing a wide variety of
instruments and singing in over 10 different languages in Georgia,
Armenia, and Azerbaijan.
The eighth session entitled, “Beyond Open Borders,” was chaired by
Prof. Asaf Savas Akat, a Turkish economist and academic. Milena
Abrahamyan presented her paper entitled, “Women Beyond Borders: Linking
our Stories,” which explored the female experience on both sides of the
closed border. Urban Jaksa, a doctoral student at the University of
York, has been involved in civil society and non-governmental
organizations since 2006, focusing primarily on anti-corruption and
transparency. In his talk, he focused on Armenian and Turkish youth in
civil society dialogue and how NGOs engaged in intercultural dialogue
can challenge certain misconceptions and stereotypes that exist on both
sides of the Turkish-Armenian border. The co-founder and co-director of
the Imagine Centre for Conflict Transformation, Philip Gameghelyan,
presented his critical paper on the prospects of track-two diplomacy in
the political context of closed borders.
The ninth and final session of the conference looked at the prospects
for open borders and was chaired by Marc Pierini, a former diplomat and
current visiting scholar at Carnegie Europe. Dr. Burcu Gultekin
Punsmann, a senior foreign policy analyst at TEPAV, presented her paper
that explored the borderlands around Turkey on the Georgian, Iraqi, and
Syrian border, while James Derounian, principal lecturer in community
development and local governance and a national teaching fellow in the
department of natural and social sciences of the University of
Gloucestershire, examined the way localized community development could
unlock cross-border potential in sealed border situations.
The conference came to an end with an interactive evaluation and
discussion led by Cengiz Aktar and Salpi Ghazarian. Both concluded that
borders are mainly in the minds of people and that the Armenian Genocide
and its aftermath created both physical and emotional borders between
Armenia and Turkey, and Armenians and Turks. While the responsibility of
normalizing relations between the two countries should not be taken
away from state-level diplomats, they said, interactions between the two
peoples are necessary if we want to achieve full normalization.
"The Armenian Weekly," November 24, 2014
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