Scholar's arrest fuels diplomatic dispute

By Catherine Collins
Special to the Tribune
Published June 22, 2005

ISTANBUL -- The arrest of a Duke University doctoral student last week on charges of trying to smuggle rare books out of Armenia has stirred concerns among academics and officials and illustrates the quagmire of Turkish-Armenian relations.

The student, Yektan Turkyilmaz, was the first Turkish citizen ever given access to the Armenian national archives. He had just concluded his fourth research trip there Friday when he was arrested before boarding a plane at the airport in Yerevan, the Armenian capital.

Armen Yeganian of the Armenian Embassy in Washington described the case as a customs violation and said Turkyilmaz had several books dating back as far as the 17th Century. But Turkyilmaz's family and academic associates said a researcher of his caliber never would try to steal priceless books.
[...]
"I believe this case is fundamentally about academic freedom," said his academic adviser, Orin Starn, a cultural anthropology professor at Duke University.

Starn described Turkyilmaz, 33, as "a brilliant and widely respected young scholar" who has received numerous fellowships to support his research into nationalism among Turks, Armenians and Kurds in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire.
[...]
[...]it is a dark chapter in Turkish history that until recently has been discussed rarely and left out of Turkish textbooks while landing many scholars, journalists and activists in jail.

Turkey's best-known novelist, Orhan Pamuk, shattered a taboo earlier this year when he said that 1 million Armenians were murdered in his country. Days of screaming headlines, death threats and several lawsuits charging him with insulting the Turkish state followed his statement.

Gradually, however, partly as a result of efforts to join the European Union, a door on the past has been opened. [...]Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called on all countries to open archives to scholars to determine once and for all what has happened.

A spokesman at the Turkish Foreign Ministry said he is baffled by the arrest.

"This is a very strange situation," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "From what we know of Turkyilmaz's research, it seems he was more sympathetic to the Armenian view than the Turkish."

Note: Above are excerpts from the article. The full article appears here. Clarifications and comments by me are contained in {}. Deletions are marked by [...]. The bold emphasis is mine.