As Turkey gets ready to bury one of its own citizens, murdered because of ethnic hatred, Pan Armenian.net carries more on news that yet another Armenian has been murdered by nationalists in Russia.

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ On Sunday the Moscow police said a dead teenager was found not far from Kastanayevskaya str, 45. “The law enforcers identified Artur Martirosyan, aged 15, native of Armenia and a 7-grade pupil of a Moscow school,” a source said. According to the date available, the teenager died of a knife wound in left part of the chest. A criminal case has been initiated. Moscow police officials also engaged into the investigation, reports Interfax.

Meanwhile, I fear that nationalist parties in Armenia are now seeking to exploit Hrant Dink’s murder to suit their own political agenda. A1 Plus carries details of another albeit small ARF-D protest and vigil in Yerevan.

“The hands of Turkey are in blood”. This was one of the posters with which a number of young people marched from the Yerevan State University building towards the EU Yerevan Office. They carried Armenian flags and sang patriotic songs. The protest action was the third event organized by ARF Dashnaktsutyun “Nikol Aghbalyan” students’ union in connection with the January 19 murder of Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

[…]

“The Armenian youth can never put up with the terrorist acts against any Armenian in any country. The murders of Gourgen Margaryan and Hrant Dink tell us one thing: Turkey is still not ready for constructive dialogue with Armenia”, said Abraham Gasparyan, member of “Nikol Aghbalyan” youth union.

Well, I’m all for protesting the racially motivated murders of anyone anywhere in the world. Such intolerance must be stamped out and detested by any normal person. However, I just have to wonder where the Nikol Aghbalyan Youth Union was when some groups protested the larger number of racially motivated murders of Armenians in Russia. They were nowhere, as I remember.

Unfortunately, sometimes it seems as though it doesn’t matter whether Armenians are viciously killed at all. What matters is where they’re killed, and by who. I can only hope that nationalist elements here don’t now try to exploit what has happened in Istanbul for their own objectives, especially when such an ideology was diametrically opposed to Dink’s.

Anyway, hats off to PanArmenian.net for reporting yet another murder of an Armenian in Russia alongside it’s coverage of Hrant Dink’s killing. I’m also hoping that tomorrow’s main commemoration in Yerevan’s Liberty Square will be held in a manner befitting Dink, and will not be hijacked in order to capitalize on his death to satisfy limited political agendas.

Anyway, I’m glad to see that some of these issues have been mentioned in a story on today’s RFE/RL, and in particular the fact that Dink opposed nationalists in both Armenia and Turkey.

According to Hakob Movses, a prominent and former culture minister, the Istanbul attack continued a centuries-old pattern. “There isn’t a single positive page in our 800-year co-existence with the Turks,” he told a roundtable discussion in Yerevan.

But Hayk Demoyan, the young director of the Museum of the Armenian Genocide, disagreed, saying that such remarks play into the hands of Turkish ultra-nationalist circles. “This murder will become a kind of watershed in Turkish society’s position on the genocide issue,” Demoyan said, pointing to the massive outpouring of sympathy for the slain journalist expressed by many Turks.

The Yerevan Press Club also deplored nationalist rhetoric “alien to the views of Hrant Dink.” “While experiencing deep sorrow, we can not fail to regret some statements whose authors tried to exploit the tragedy which took place in Istanbul,” the media watchdog said in a statement. “We wish to believe that the values which Hrant Dink espoused, the aims which he promoted will find more and more adherents in Armenia, Turkey and the entire region,” it added.

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“Hrant Dink had a dream,” said Arsen Avagian, a diplomat who represented Armenia at the Istanbul headquarters of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation organization. “He wanted to see a center for Turkish studies established in Yerevan and worked hard in that direction. I think the best way to remember Hrant Dink is to create such a center.”

Interestingly, Dink’s killer struck a blow against the normalization of relations between Armenia and Turkey as well as the latter’s albeit slow democratization. In that sense, it’s somewhat ironic that nationalist groups in Armenia are starting to use Dink’s death to achieve the same objective. appear to have the same agenda. Such an irony is not lost on some of Armenia’s newspapers.

“While fighting for Turkey’s recognition of the Armenian genocide, Dink has in reality fought more for democracy and freedom of speech in Turkey,” writes “Haykakan Zhamanak.” “In an interview with the Associated Press, Dink began to cry as he described how he is being hated by those of his countrymen who insist that he must not live in Turkey.” The paper also recalls Dink’s remark that he will never leave Turkey because that would constitute a “betrayal” of progressive Turks.

“It is obvious and undisputable that the murder of Hrant Dink was the work of those forces that are against normalization of Turkish-Armenian relations and are doing everything to deepen the abyss between the two peoples,” editorializes “Hayk.” “Of course, Armenian and Turkish ‘patriotic’ extremists will make anti-Turkish and anti-Armenian sharp statements and once again feel satisfied.”

“The ethnic origin of the murder perpetrator does not matter,” Stepan Grigorian, a liberal analyst, tells “Aravot.” “In my view, what matters is who ordered the killing. I have no doubt that the mastermind is the force or the state which is against Turkey’s membership in the European Union and against improved relations between Armenia and Turkey.”

Once again, let’s hope that Dink’s example and belief in reconciliation, as well Turkey’s own need to reconcile itself with its past wins over the rather simplistic and unsophisticated mindset of nationalists in both republics.