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Turkish Food Ban Reflects Political Concerns in Armenia

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  • Turkish Food Ban Reflects Political Concerns in Armenia

    Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
    June 30 2006

    Turkish Food Ban Reflects Political Concerns in Armenia


    Turkish food has remained popular in Armenia despite the hostile
    diplomatic relationship, but it has been banned ostensibly for health
    reasons.

    By Arpi Harutiunyan in Yerevan (CRS No. 346, 30-June-06)

    `Don't buy Turkish sunflower seeds,' Nelly told her friend Armine as
    they stood in a shop in Yerevan. `I've heard they cause sterility.'

    `Are you serious? `The Turkish ones are so tasty,' said Armine, still
    wavering. In the end, she reconsidered, `All right, give me two packs
    of Armenian seeds.'

    Fears that Turkish food products could cause various illnesses and
    disorders have grown into a wave of hysteria in Armenia that seems to
    be as least politically driven as it is based on real health
    concerns.

    Officially at least, the sale of Turkish foodstuffs has been illegal
    since May, when the Armenian trade and economic development ministry
    imposed what it said would be a temporary ban on certifying food
    products imported from Turkey.

    Some Turkish-made grocery products can still be found in the shops
    and markets, but officials say they have either been smuggled into
    the country, or brought in legally as part of travellers' normal
    duty-free allowance.

    At a political level, the relationship between Armenia and Turkey is
    coldly hostile - their shared border is sealed and they have no
    diplomatic relations. Ankara cut off all ties with Armenia because of
    that country's role in the Nagorny Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan,
    with which the Turks enjoy a good relationship based on their common
    ethnic background.

    Yet for the last 15 years, imported Turkish foodstuffs - transported
    via Georgia - have continued to account for a sizeable chunk of
    groceries sales in Armenia.

    There seems to be little scientific reason to single Turkish
    foodstuffs out now, since many of the problems - variable standards
    and some cases of contamination - apply to domestic products and
    other imports.

    Officials in Armenia deny they are singling out Turkish products. But
    government officials and consumers' rights groups have mounted a
    concerted campaign culminating in the certification ban and calls for
    a boycott.

    The state agency for state quality control concluded this year that
    some Turkish goods `violated consumers' rights' and were at variance
    with Armenian law.

    Trade ministry spokesperson Anahit Khechoian said the move to bar
    Turkish products was prompted mainly by customer complaints about
    `suspicious foodstuffs of unknown origin'. But the ministry has also
    offered another explanation - that the ban is to prevent the spread
    of the deadly bird flu virus.

    A non-government organisation called Protection of Consumers' Rights
    claimed to have found that five out of ten food imports they tested -
    nine from Turkey and one from Iran - contained harmful ingredients.
    In particular, the group said it discovered bacilli in some products
    and unacceptable levels of yeast in others.

    Biochemist Anahit Davtyan says bacteria get into foodstuffs made in
    unhygienic conditions or stored at the wrong temperature, and can
    cause dysentery and other infectious diseases including typhoid.

    Abgar Yeghoyan, the head of Protection of Consumers' Rights, made
    dark hints that contamination could be introduced deliberately by
    Armenia's enemies.

    `Food safety is one element of national security,' he said. `Given
    the region we live in and the laws we have, there's no guarantee we
    won't be poisoned.'

    The head of the trade ministry's standards office, Robert Dayan,
    suggested that the gap left by `questionable' Turkish imports would
    be filled by `high-quality Armenian goods'.

    Some consumer advocates, though, say Armenian-made products need
    closer inspection as well, since many lack proper labelling and have
    quality problems.

    `We've been talking incessantly about the foodstuff safety problem,
    but the first thing we should worry about is the local produce,' said
    Armen Poghosyan, who leads the Consumers' Association. `If I were to
    assess the extent to which food safety is guaranteed on the Armenian
    market, I'd say quite seriously that there are virtually no
    guarantees.'

    In one recent incident in early in June, bottles of an Armenian brand
    of mineral water suddenly started exploding one after another in a
    Yerevan shop. Customers and sales staff rushed out of the shop to
    avoid the flying glass. In this case the problems was traced to
    faulty bottle manufacture.

    Poghosyan's association says that a study conducted in November 2005
    found that 64 per cent of locally-produced food items lacked proper
    information about contents, nutritional value and expiry date.

    Rather than deal with wider quality problems, officials may have
    found it simpler to blame Turkish imports because of underlying
    emotive issues about the country's politics.

    One indication of this was a recent scandal in which it was claimed
    that a brand of Turkish chocolate on sale in the shops was actually
    being made by a subsidiary based in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan
    with which Armenia is still technically in a state of war.

    To add insult to injury, an Armenian confectionary producer ran TV
    advertisements warning that the offending chocolate bars contained
    vegetable fats, rather than milk as stated on the label.

    Arpi Harutiunyan is a reporter at Armenianow Weekly.
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