Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

[Eddo211]

23.10.2011 22:24

Armenia offers its assistance to Turkey following the 7.3 magnitude quake that struck the country earlier today.

Consultations chaired by Armenian Minister of Emergency Situations Armen Yeritsyan were held at the Crisis Management Center of the Ministry of Emergency Situations of the Republic of Armenia to discuss the preparedness of the rescue units.

Through UN cables Armenia has expressed its willingness and preparedness to send rescuers to Turkey.

Armenia provided aid to Turkey in 1999 and 2000.

http://www.armradio.am/eng/news/?part=soc&id=21124

The epicenter was 16 km northeast of Van.

Hundreds die as strong quake rocks eastern Turkey
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-15421633

[arakeretzig]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

Let's hope akhtamar pulled through this! It's just amazing these churches still stand today!

[Mos]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

Turkey accepted Azerbaijan's request for help but not Armenia's. The important thing is this earthquake didn't strike near Yerevan.

[Davo88]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

I read a comment in one site saying that this earthquake was caused by the Armenians' "satanic ceremony" in Diyarbakir as the church there had reopened a day before the earthquake. It's interesting how they are making such connections.

[Mos]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

I read a comment in one site saying that this earthquake was caused by the Armenians' "satanic ceremony" in Diyarbakir as the church there had reopened a day before the earthquake. It's interesting how they are making such connections.

They're matching Azeri hysteria.

[Haykakan]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

Found this about the church mentioned here.

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
Oct 23 2011

Armenians claim roots in Diyarbakır

Sunday, October 23, 2011
VERCÄ°HAN ZÄ°FLÄ°OÄ?LU
DİYARBAKIR ` Hürriyet Daily News


The Surp Giragos Church was blessed on Oct. 22 in accordance with the
traditions of the Apostolic Armenian Church. DHA photo

A group of Armenians, raised as Sunni Muslims, will be baptized today
as Armenian Orthodox christians at the historic St. Giragos (Surp
Giragos) Armenian Church in Turkey's southeastern province of
Diyarbakır.

The church, which was reopened on Oct. 22 following two years of
restoration work, will host the baptism ceremony for dozens of Sunni
Muslims of Armenian origin, whose ancestors converted to Islam after
the 1915 killings in the Ottoman era.

Among those to be baptized is Gaffur Türkay, who also contributed to
the restoration of the church. Türkay was going through emotional
fluctuations, he told the Hürriyet Daily News.

`I wish this church had always been open,' he said. `It is
unbelievable to be together here with people from all around the world
with whom I share the same origins.'

`We have been ostracized by both Sunni Muslims and Armenians,' said
Behçet Avcı, also known as Garod Sasunyan, who will also be baptized.
`It is a very emotional moment for me and I'm a bit upset, because
unfortunately we do not belong to either side.'

The baptism ceremony, which will be closed to the press and outside
visitors, will be held today at the St. Giragos Armenian Church and
will be led by Deputy Patriarch Archbishop Aram AteÅ?yan. The names of
those to be baptized will not be revealed for security reasons.

A religious service was held yesterday at the church, one day after it
was re-opened following the completion of the restoration work.

Among the participants in yesterday's service were guests from Armenia
and the United States, including former foreign minister of Armenia
and the leader of Armenia's Heritage Party, Raffi Hovhannesian, U.S.
Ambassador to Turkey Francis Ricciardione and Archbishop Vicken
Ayvazian, diocese of the Armenian Orthodox Church of America.

Other participants at the ceremony included Dositheos Anagnostopulos,
spokesperson for the Istanbul-based Greek Orthodox Patriarchate, Yusuf
Ã?etin, patriarchal vicar of the Syriac Orthodox Church in Istanbul,
Diyarbakır Mayor Osman Baydemir and Sur Mayor Abdullah DelibaÅ?.

The St. Giragos Church was blessed on Oct. 22 in accordance with the
traditions of the Apostolic Armenian Church.

The restoration work was funded by donations from Armenians in
Istanbul and abroad through an initiative spearheaded by Vartkes Ergün
Ayık, a businessman of Armenian origin whose roots lie in Diyarbakır,
and Raffi Bedrosyan, an ex-resident of Istanbul who now lives in
Canada.

The Sur District Governor's Office in Diyarbakır lent its support to
the project as well.

`We used to have over 2,600 churches and monasteries across Anatolia
in the past. Unfortunately, only a handful of sanctuaries remain. My
request from Turkey as a spiritual leader is for churches to be
returned to the [Armenian] community, rather than reopening them for
religious service as museums,' Archbishop Ayvazian told the Hürriyet
Daily News.

Ayvazian said he was born in Turkey's southeastern Å?ırnak province and
speaks very fluent Turkish. `As with many Armenian-Americans, we also
spoke Turkish at home,' he said, adding that his parents could not
speak Armenian.

Responding to a question about why Armenian-Americans keep Turkey at
an arm's length, he said: `The reason is blatantly obvious. There was
a genocide. An apology, a heart-felt step forward, could entirely
banish this dispute.'

`It is exceedingly important for the two peoples to engage in
dialogue, but without forgetting that great, dark disaster of history,
like genocide,' Raffi Hovhannesiyan, leader of Armenia's Heritage
(Jarankutyun) Party, told the Hürriyet Daily News.

`I feel utterly alone among thousands of people now. Why were my
people dispersed to all corners of the world?' said Yervant, a
virtuoso who plays the `ud,' a traditional stringed musical
instrument, speaking to the Hürriyet Daily News.

Used as a command center for German officers during the First World
War, the church was then used as an apparel depot by the state-owned
Sümerbank until 1950. The church was then handed back to the Armenian
community, following a long legal battle.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

[Davo88]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

Surb Khach and the Earthquake

24/10/2011
Andrei Zolotov, Jr.

For more than a day now the devastating earthquake in Eastern Turkey has been in the focus of the global news agenda. By Monday evening, 279 people have been reported dead and hundreds more are wounded. It is only natural that it is people’s tragedy that draws attention and sympathy across the world.

Despite all this, I find it a bit strange that to this hour Google News yields contradictory reports from little known sources about the fate of the superb ancient Armenian monuments in the Province of Van, including its gem – the 10th century Surb Khach, or Holy Cross, Cathedral on the island of Akhtamar in the Lake Van. After all, the land that has been rocked, once again, by a major earthquake is known to millions of Armenians around the world as Western Armenia – the territory, from which Armenians were driven during the genocide of 1915, which to this date remains the bone of contention in Turkey’s international relations. Its remaining landmarks, such as the ruins of the ancient Armenian capital of Ani or the fascinating Holy Cross Cathedral on the Lake Van, are not only the distant Wailing Walls of the Armenian people. They are – or at least should be - world heritage sites, dear to all cultured people regardless of their ethnicity or religion.

Turkey understands this. As reluctantly and ambiguously as one can, it recognized the importance of Surb Khach by giving it a state-funded restoration several years ago, after decades of vandalism and neglect, and reopening it – not as a church, but as a museum.

I am not saying that at this hour the fate of the medieval monuments should take priority to human lives. Of course not. But tomorrow, or the day after, I – and I am sure, many others – would like to know, how these great churches and city walls survived this earthquake, just one of many in their centuries-old existence. Caring about them appears to be the least political and most face saving way for Turkey to mend fences not only with Armenians, but with millions of other Christians and nations who have demonstrated concern for the events of 1915.

By a sheer coincidence – or, some would say, providentially - on the same day that Eastern Turkey/Western Armenia was shaken by the earthquake, in Moscow, the Catholicos of the Armenian Apostolic Church, Karekin II, in the presence of Armenia’s President Serge Sargsyan and Russian church and state officials, blessed the crosses for another Surb Khach – a new cathedral of the Armenian Apostolic Church in Russia, which imitates the forms of the Holy Cross Cathedral on the Lake Van. (see photos here http://www.mospat.ru/en/2011/10/24/news50235/) The impressive cathedral in north central Moscow, which has now been finished in terms of overall construction (interior decoration remains to be done) will be the biggest Armenian church outside of Armenia and the center of the territorially largest diocese of the Armenian Apostolic Church worldwide. Given the millions-strong Armenian diaspora in Russia, numerically it is probably also one of the largest.

Today, during the talks between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Armenian President Serge Sargsyan, they called Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul to express their condolences. Given the absence of diplomatic relations and the closed border between Armenia and Turkey – the border going now through the earthquake zone – it is not a small thing.

When all those dead in this earthquake are mourned and laid to rest, when all the wounded are taken care of, the world will want to know about the status of the great remains of the centuries of Armenian presence in Eastern Turkey. By behaving one way or another in that regard, Turkey can either make a step towards healing the old wounds or stir them once again.

http://en.ria.ru/andrei_zolotov_blog/20111024/168073654.html

[ara87]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

Except for Azerbaijan and Iran, Turkey has denied aid from all countries, from Israel to China and so on, so we shouldn't take it to personally. The government stated that while they are thankful to all the countries that have offered support, it would be chaotic if they suddenly let relief workers from all around the world show up, and they're probably right.

Also, while it was a tragic event, it was nothing like the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 which resulted in the death of 316,000 people. So far the death toll in Turkey is just now reaching near 400, and I don't think it will go over 1000. Also Turkey has the means to deal with the situation for the most part, so a global colaition of aid is not needed.


I don't think Akdamar is destroyed, but I'm sure it's badly damaged.

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

I don't think Akdamar is destroyed, but I'm sure it's badly damaged.

It will be entirely untouched. A church that is structurally sound will easily survive such a minor earthquake (it has survived much worse). It will be those churches that have been pre-planned (by damaging their structural integrity at carefully selected points) to be destroyed in an earthquake that will have been destroyed (Surp Stepanos near Muradiye, the Monastery of the Miracles at Ardzgue, Adilcevas, and maybe the 5thC church at Tug near Tatvan).

[bell-the-cat]

Re: Armenia offers aid to Turkey after earthquake

Surb Khach and the Earthquake

24/10/2011
Andrei Zolotov, Jr.

They are – or at least should be - world heritage sites, dear to all cultured people regardless of their ethnicity or religion.

Turkey understands this. As reluctantly and ambiguously as one can, it recognized the importance of Surb Khach by giving it a state-funded restoration several years ago, after decades of vandalism and neglect....

Russian pig. The obscenity of presenting a crime as if it were good work.