Vazgen Shmavonyan keeps a flock of doves at an Armenian Orthodox pilgrimage site in Lusarat, Armenia, and they readily venture across the border into Turkey, less than 2km away. But Shmavonyan cannot follow, as if he is the caged one. Off they go, symbols of something that this region has not had a whole lot of.
The border between Armenia and Turkey has been closed since 1993, a mini Iron Curtain that is in part a legacy of one of the world’s more rancorous conflicts, nearly a century old.
Recent weeks have brought news of a possible thaw, with the two countries outlining a plan for establishing diplomatic ties and lifting barriers.
Yet as much as Shmavonyan and others at the pilgrimage site would like to roam, they reacted warily to the official contacts with Turkey. Of course, open the border, they said, it would help the economy and improve prospects for the future.
But first, most insisted, Turkey must address the past.
They said that before negotiations proceeded, the Turkish government must acknowledge that 1.5 million ethnic Armenians were systematically killed under Ottoman rule in Turkey during World War I.
“We want Turkey to admit that there was a genocide,” said Shmavonyan, 38. “Certainly, it’s bad that the border is blocked. If it were open, it would be good for everyone. For the people who trade, everything would be cheaper. However, let them admit it, and then we can talk.”
Shmavonyan makes his living charging visitors a few dollars to pet and release his doves off the hilltop pilgrimage site, which is an ancient monastery that is considered a birthplace of Armenian Christianity and a redoubt against encroaching Islam.
The tension at the border is reflected in the troops that guard the Armenian side: They are Russian, deployed at Armenia’s request to help protect it from its far larger neighbor. (Armenia has 3 million people, while Turkey has 72 million.)
FACEOFF
Armenia, a former Soviet republic, maintains close ties with Russia. In fact, this is perhaps one of the last places on earth where, in an echo of the Cold War, NATO soldiers — in this case, from Turkey — face Russian ones across a sealed border.
From the Orthodox pilgrimage site, called Khor Virap, it is easy to see Turkish land that was once settled by ethnic Armenians, including the area around Mount Ararat, where the Bible suggests Noah landed his ark after the flood.
Among those Armenians were Shmavonyan’s paternal grandparents, who were killed by Turkish troops, he said. His father survived and fled here.
Many workers and visitors at the site recounted similar tales. And some expressed anxiety about new clashes if negotiations succeeded.
“Turkey immediately will come over here; who knows what will happen?” said Hayk Avetisyan, 38, a taxi driver who had ferried some tourists to Lusarat from Yerevan, the Armenian capital. “If you know the history between us — immediately Turkey will try to take over half of Armenia.”
Not everyone was as pessimistic. Narek Avakyan, 29, the chief Armenian Orthodox priest at Khor Virap, said Armenia should not impose conditions on the talks.
“Whether or not they want to admit the genocide, today or tomorrow or sometime soon, they will do it,” he said of the Turkish government. “It is a fact, and they know it. It has been so many years. And it was not they who did it; it was their grandfathers and fathers.”
The Turkish government has long disputed that a genocide occurred, asserting that Armenia peddles false history.
Turkish officials say World War I was a dark time when many ethnic Armenians tragically died in the upheaval caused by the fighting. But they say there was no methodical campaign to kill them and they emphasize that many ethnic Turks died during that period as well.
Historians have generally said that Turkey’s claims are not credible.
broken PROMISES
Armenia has sought to persuade other countries to recognize the genocide and the US has often been drawn into the fray.
As a candidate, US President Barack Obama said he would acknowledge it. However, last month, apparently concerned about offending Turkey, an important US ally, the White House released a statement on Armenian Remembrance Day that paid tribute to those who died but did not explicitly use the word genocide.
The intense feelings of people at Khor Virap show how difficult it will be to heal divisions in this strategically important yet volatile region.
Besides its troubled relationship with Turkey, Armenia has a closed border with another Muslim neighbor, Azerbaijan, also a former Soviet republic. Soon after the two countries became independent after the demise of the Soviet Union in 1991, they went to war over the disputed enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Turkey, which has strong ethnic and political ties to Azerbaijan, shut its border with Armenia in 1993 in solidarity with Azerbaijan.
The discord between Turkey and Armenia then grew far worse, as Armenia and influential Armenian immigrant groups around the world pressed the issue of the World War I killings.
Armenia’s only open borders are with Georgia, to the north, and Iran to the south.
The hostility in Armenia toward the Turkish government does not necessarily extend to its people. In fact, Shmavonyan, who keeps the flock of doves at the monastery, said he worked for a decade in Istanbul, the Turkish capital, as a textile trader.
“They treated us very well,” he said. “They know that Armenians are very good and hardworking people.”
Still, he and others were not hopeful that the rift would end soon. And they conceded that their insistence that Turkey acknowledge the genocide before the border was opened carried bittersweet overtones.
“Our land is there,” said David Arakelyan, 50, who runs a picnic area for visitors to the monastery. “We want to go over there and walk around and see how our grandparents lived. I want to go over there and see their graves.”
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