Media Dialogue: Armenia-Turkey program over

The 2-year-long Media Dialogue: Armenia-Turkey program has ended in the presentation of book with the same title.

The program was launched on the initiative of the Internews media support NGO and the Global political Trends Center (GPOT) at Istanbul Kultur University.

Nune Sargsyan, Executive Director, Internews NGO, presented the phases of the program: the Armenian and Turkish journalists involved in the program had a month’s stay in the neighboring country, visiting places of interest, getting acquainted with the countries’ public and political life, culture and history, sending reports to their media outlets.

“Over this period, eight journalists have prepared more than 300 TV and radio reports. Some of them are in this book,” Mrs Sargsyan said.

In his article entitled “One winter day” Mutlu Tombekicin, a reporter for the Vatan daily, writes: “Armenia has been our neighbor for thousands of years. But I have hardly known anything of it except for it being a poor country where a devastating earthquake occurred.”

He considered Yerevan a backward city. However, seeing the Zvartnots airport he changed his opinion. One more “shock” for him was to see gambling houses and brand-name shops.

Vahe Sarukhanyan, a reporter for Hetq Online, reports that he participated in a commemoration on the Armenian Genocide victims in Istanbul, April 24.

He also tells about Turkish nationalists. “Their cries were nothing against the fact that, as some Turkish political and public figures admit, the Turkish taboo on the subject of Armenian Genocide is being broken. More and more people are admitting the fact,” Sarukhanyan writes.