Ankara University hosts conference on Armenia-Turkey border

PanARMENIAN.Net - 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, the Armenian Weekly reports.

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.

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.

A 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 Karabakh perspective.

Turkish political choices in regards to the sealing of the Armenian border and the shaping of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict was presented by journalist and political analyst Vicken Cheterian. Vahram Ter Marevosyan, 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 conference continued 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.

Entitled “Open Borders, Open Minds–I and II,” the next 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.

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.

The 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.

The conference came to an end with an interactive evaluation and discussion.