Oskanian, Turkyilmaz and Karabakh
RFE/RL reports that the Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian has expressed his relief that the Turkish scholar Yektan Turkyilmaz was not imprisoned after being arrested by the former KGB for apparently attempting to smuggle books out of the country.
Oskanian said he believes that Yektan Turkyilmaz, a doctoral student at the U.S. Duke University, should not have been put on trial for trying to take old books out of Armenia without a government permission required by the law.
Interestingly, Oskanian denied that the Armenian Foreign Ministry did not intervene and influence the verdict passed down that effectively say Turkyilmaz freed. However, I’ve heard differently from reliable sources and no doubt, there were some very high level phone calls to the judge the morning the two year suspended sentence was passed down.
Meanwhile, although no real details of last week’s talks between Kocharian and Aliyev in Kazan have been made known, Oskanian also said he was pleased with the progress made. However, it is widely suspected that no real breakthrough will be announced until both presidents have overcome potential internal political problems after parliamentary elections in Azerbaijan and a referendum on constitutional ammendments in November.
However, Oskanian denies that there is any connection between the lack of discussion in society with the imminent tests of Armenia and Azerbaijan’s democratic credentials.
