Armenia to be prepared for St Kirakos church opening from now on - turkologist

As the opening of St Kirakos Church in Turkey is scheduled for 2011, Armenia needs to be prepared for that, Turkologist Artak Shakaryan finds.

At a news conference on Wednesday, he stressed the importance of an Armenia's participation in the ceremony.

"We do that for ourselves not for Turks or others," he said, criticizing the country for failure to send a delegation to the opening of St Akhtamar church in 2007.

"I don't' mean an official delegation," he said. "It could be a delegation of 50-60 English-speaking experts who might distribute booklets there, introducing Armenians' views to the international media."

"We weren't prepared for Akhtamar. Ok, It came as a surprise to us. But we definitely know that St Kirakos is going to open in 2011. So let's organize a 50-member delegation of English-speaking historians, international relations experts, lawyers and cultural studies specialists and attend the opening ceremony. Never mind if a couple of people are detained. If anything of the kind happens, so much the better. That will disclose Ankara's true image," Shakaryan added.