Dismantled Kars Monument to Humanity may travel to Berlin

PanARMENIAN.Net - Adnan Oral, a restaurant owner in Berlin, wants the Monument to Humanity, a statue symbolizing the Armenian-Turkish friendship dismantled in Kars after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan labeled it as ‘monstrosity’, to be transported to the German capital.

In an interview with Der Spiegel, Oral said, “The work is being dismantled because Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan does not like it. I find it intolerable that a work of art is being torn down at the whim of a head of government and without any legitimate basis. That has not happened in recent years in Europe.”

Asked how he is going to transport the statue which is 35 meters tall and weighs 300 tons, he noted, “When you compare this problem to the fate of the Armenian people, it is not so difficult.”

At first Oral is going to will store the monument privately, and then he will ask those responsible if they can offer a worthy location for it.

“After all, the Germans were also partially responsible for the 1915 genocide of the Armenians at the hands of the Turks,” he said. “At that time, German officers were advisers to the sultan in Constantinople, and the German Reich had a great stake in Turkey's stability. Berlin did not do anything to prevent the murder of the Armenians.”

As to financing of the memorial project, Oral said, “Privately and through official sources. I will somehow manage it.”