COLOGNE, Germany (Panorama.am) – On Saturday, a map of Western Armenia displayed at a community event in Germany caused a stir in the Turkish media.
According to Ermenihaber reports, an event entitled “Armenian History and Culture: Silent Ararat” held at the Cologne Catholic Church by the Armenian Primacy of Cologne featured a map of ancient Armenia with boundaries reaching as far as the present-day Turkey’s Samsun to the north and Mersin in the south. This map also covered the territory of the self-declared Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus.
The map was widely shared by Turkish news outlets and slammed by users on social media platforms with plenty of criticism toward both the Armenian community and to German officials for authorizing the event.
The educated Turks understand that Turkey was created on the territory of Byzantium, Armenia, and Greece. This is a simple fact. It’s also fact that the modern Turkey was created through violence, state-sponsored mass murder with a purpose to exterminate the Armenian people as such, i.e. genocide. Ancient Armenian cities like Van, Kars, Ani are in Turkey now. Our beloved Mount Ararat too… Anti-Armenian sentiments are being fueled by modern Turkish government, promoting Turkish ultra-nationalism. The government makes every effort to eradicate the traces of Armenian heritage. But the society is becoming increasingly more progressive. Large numbers of intellectuals raise the issue of historic injustice. Many of them end up in jail. Hopefully Turkey will become a democratic state and will accept the historic facts, but what will be the result of that, realistically? The territory is mostly inhabited by Kurds, who see it as Kurdistan. Not a simple situation at all…