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KASSAB'S ARMENIANS FIND SAFE HAVEN IN TURKEY
Al-Monitor
May 14 2014
Author: Dominique Soguel
Posted May 14, 2014
VAKIFLI, Turkey -- Evicted by Islamist rebels from the last Armenian
village in Syria, a group of elderly apple farmers have found an
idyllic refuge across the border in the land of their historic enemy,
Turkey.
Seated on plastic chairs, three brothers recounted how after years
of life in the shadow of conflict, war came knocking at their door
in Kassab, a Christian Armenian town just across the border from the
village of Vakifli.
"The bearded men gunned down our doors and destroyed our homes,"
said 68-year-old Asbed Djurian. "Everybody had fled but we had no
car to escape, so they caught us."
Djurian said 10 armed men burst into his home at 6 a.m., yelling for
him to put his hands over his head. His brothers Babken and Jacob,
along with their 92-year-old mother, were rounded up in the same
dawn raid. The brothers said they were detained in a small room for
14 days before being handed over to Turkey.
"They took away our papers and cell phones," said the eldest brother,
Jacob, who identified the assailants as "Muslims, mostly foreigners,
but also Syrians. All of them al-Qaeda."
When militants overran Kassab in late March, most residents fled to
the Latakia coastal areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad's
regime, which portrays itself as a protector of minorities caught
in a war against terrorists and Islamist extremists. Ankara, once
a close ally of Damascus, now backs the opposition and is home to
nearly 1 million Syrian refugees.
In general, refugees say Turkey's policy toward its "guests"
show greater hospitality and solidarity than that of Syria's Arab
neighbors. But for Syrian Armenians, descendants of the survivors
of the 1915 massacre and mass displacement of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey, it was not an obvious choice of safe haven.
The Djurian brothers are among 22 Syrian Armenian refugees settled
by the Turkish authorities in the village of 130 people, whose mayor
says the population can jump to 500 in the summer months. Most of
the refugees are men in their 70s who were either unable or unwilling
to leave Kassab when the fighting erupted. They wound up in Vakifli
by chance, not choice, turned over to Turkey by rebels or evacuated
among the wounded. The Armenians from Kassab were placed in Vakifli
because of the historic and cultural ties between the two villages.
"This is the first time we've received Syrian Armenian refugees. We
didn't expect this to happen, but it happened," said Berc Cartun,
who has served as mayor for the past two decades and was recently
re-elected.
Vakifli, with its stone houses and terraced orange orchards that
overlook the Mediterranean coastline of Syria, is reputed to be the
last Christian Armenian village left in Turkey. Its residents, who eke
a living from organic farming and sell sweet jams to tourists, share
language, history and kinship with the refugees from Kassab, a border
town and crossing just 43 kilometers (27 miles) south of Vakifli.
The Syrian Armenians, who arrived in early April with no documents
or belongings, have been housed in three simple lodging houses run by
the church. They have new clothes now, and spend the days chatting in
the cool shade of pine trees. The government and families are helping
provide for them, according to the mayor.
Cem Capar, the president of a local Armenian foundation, said the
refugees, among them nine women but no children, arrived "completely
terrified and traumatized." Most had been detained for two weeks
after their village was seized.
The refugees say privately they want to return to Syria or Lebanon
to rejoin their relatives, rather than stay in Turkey.
On the 99th anniversary of what the Armenians (backed by many
historians) insist was a state-ordered genocide launched on April
24, 1915, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences
to descendants of the victims. It was the first such gesture by a
Turkish leader. But he fell short of using the word "genocide."
George Kortmosian, another apple farmer from Kassab, said he was
grateful to Ankara for the treatment he had received, although he
too was keen to return Syria to rejoin his wife. He told Agence
France-Presse, "I've been treated very well both here in the village
and at the hospital." The septuagenarian rolled up his blue shirt to
reveal a jagged pink scar across his stomach left by shrapnel when
the rebels launched their assault on Kassab.
Kortmosian regained consciousness days later in a Turkish hospital.
The assault on Kassab -- a town of nearly 2,000 people in peacetime
-- inflamed passions in the Armenian diaspora, which accused Turkey
of having facilitated the operation. Activists turned to Twitter to
spread the message #SaveKassab. US celebrities Kim Kardashian and
Cher, both of Armenian parentage, joined the campaign. "Please let's
not let history repeat itself!!!" tweeted Kardashian.
The Armenian Committee of America urged US lawmakers to probe "Turkey's
role in this al-Qaeda-linked aggression." The Syrian opposition, in the
face of concerns raised by Moscow and the United Nations, stressed that
Armenians were not targeted and their places of worship not damaged.
Back in Vakifli, Asbed Djurian, another Kassabji, as its residents
are known, said he "wishes for peace" and "dreams of his apples." But
peace, he stressed, would remain a distant dream so long as the United
States continues to support jihadist groups fighting Assad.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/kassab-armenians-safe-haven-turkey.html
Al-Monitor
May 14 2014
Author: Dominique Soguel
Posted May 14, 2014
VAKIFLI, Turkey -- Evicted by Islamist rebels from the last Armenian
village in Syria, a group of elderly apple farmers have found an
idyllic refuge across the border in the land of their historic enemy,
Turkey.
Seated on plastic chairs, three brothers recounted how after years
of life in the shadow of conflict, war came knocking at their door
in Kassab, a Christian Armenian town just across the border from the
village of Vakifli.
"The bearded men gunned down our doors and destroyed our homes,"
said 68-year-old Asbed Djurian. "Everybody had fled but we had no
car to escape, so they caught us."
Djurian said 10 armed men burst into his home at 6 a.m., yelling for
him to put his hands over his head. His brothers Babken and Jacob,
along with their 92-year-old mother, were rounded up in the same
dawn raid. The brothers said they were detained in a small room for
14 days before being handed over to Turkey.
"They took away our papers and cell phones," said the eldest brother,
Jacob, who identified the assailants as "Muslims, mostly foreigners,
but also Syrians. All of them al-Qaeda."
When militants overran Kassab in late March, most residents fled to
the Latakia coastal areas controlled by President Bashar al-Assad's
regime, which portrays itself as a protector of minorities caught
in a war against terrorists and Islamist extremists. Ankara, once
a close ally of Damascus, now backs the opposition and is home to
nearly 1 million Syrian refugees.
In general, refugees say Turkey's policy toward its "guests"
show greater hospitality and solidarity than that of Syria's Arab
neighbors. But for Syrian Armenians, descendants of the survivors
of the 1915 massacre and mass displacement of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey, it was not an obvious choice of safe haven.
The Djurian brothers are among 22 Syrian Armenian refugees settled
by the Turkish authorities in the village of 130 people, whose mayor
says the population can jump to 500 in the summer months. Most of
the refugees are men in their 70s who were either unable or unwilling
to leave Kassab when the fighting erupted. They wound up in Vakifli
by chance, not choice, turned over to Turkey by rebels or evacuated
among the wounded. The Armenians from Kassab were placed in Vakifli
because of the historic and cultural ties between the two villages.
"This is the first time we've received Syrian Armenian refugees. We
didn't expect this to happen, but it happened," said Berc Cartun,
who has served as mayor for the past two decades and was recently
re-elected.
Vakifli, with its stone houses and terraced orange orchards that
overlook the Mediterranean coastline of Syria, is reputed to be the
last Christian Armenian village left in Turkey. Its residents, who eke
a living from organic farming and sell sweet jams to tourists, share
language, history and kinship with the refugees from Kassab, a border
town and crossing just 43 kilometers (27 miles) south of Vakifli.
The Syrian Armenians, who arrived in early April with no documents
or belongings, have been housed in three simple lodging houses run by
the church. They have new clothes now, and spend the days chatting in
the cool shade of pine trees. The government and families are helping
provide for them, according to the mayor.
Cem Capar, the president of a local Armenian foundation, said the
refugees, among them nine women but no children, arrived "completely
terrified and traumatized." Most had been detained for two weeks
after their village was seized.
The refugees say privately they want to return to Syria or Lebanon
to rejoin their relatives, rather than stay in Turkey.
On the 99th anniversary of what the Armenians (backed by many
historians) insist was a state-ordered genocide launched on April
24, 1915, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan offered condolences
to descendants of the victims. It was the first such gesture by a
Turkish leader. But he fell short of using the word "genocide."
George Kortmosian, another apple farmer from Kassab, said he was
grateful to Ankara for the treatment he had received, although he
too was keen to return Syria to rejoin his wife. He told Agence
France-Presse, "I've been treated very well both here in the village
and at the hospital." The septuagenarian rolled up his blue shirt to
reveal a jagged pink scar across his stomach left by shrapnel when
the rebels launched their assault on Kassab.
Kortmosian regained consciousness days later in a Turkish hospital.
The assault on Kassab -- a town of nearly 2,000 people in peacetime
-- inflamed passions in the Armenian diaspora, which accused Turkey
of having facilitated the operation. Activists turned to Twitter to
spread the message #SaveKassab. US celebrities Kim Kardashian and
Cher, both of Armenian parentage, joined the campaign. "Please let's
not let history repeat itself!!!" tweeted Kardashian.
The Armenian Committee of America urged US lawmakers to probe "Turkey's
role in this al-Qaeda-linked aggression." The Syrian opposition, in the
face of concerns raised by Moscow and the United Nations, stressed that
Armenians were not targeted and their places of worship not damaged.
Back in Vakifli, Asbed Djurian, another Kassabji, as its residents
are known, said he "wishes for peace" and "dreams of his apples." But
peace, he stressed, would remain a distant dream so long as the United
States continues to support jihadist groups fighting Assad.
http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/kassab-armenians-safe-haven-turkey.html