Diaries 2005

P20: Female - Tr

10.08.05
I have been waiting fort his. Since i have heard it from emel kurma. I was( i am stil) so excited. Stepping into hYd Office and seeing the smiling + friendly faces, made me more comfortable though! The trip to airport, the flight to adana stil felt like a stranger. I want to learn all the languages around the wporld. Another impossible desire :) ! anyway, then the trip from adana to Antakya. It was a loooong one! Felt like exploding in the end :) find a similarity though, we all know britney spears songs :) and Tarkan kiss kiss. I was expecting a more traditional way to meet but it is beter this way. The hotel is excellent!:)

I an kind of worried about how to behave if i hear something that i really dont like, both from turkish and armenain participants. I will leave and learn! Time is up!!!:)

11.08.05
I was very tired but happy last night because i had the chance to learn spmething real and from different points of views in the end!

I was really disturbed by two things though. First one is at the 1 program that murat belge gave us yesterday, i really wanted to tell my ideas and feelings but i had this control over myself saying,”should i say this, as a Turkish girl/ girl that is acitizen of turkish R. In such dialog, i fell like we must listen to them cause that is not my history wheras they had their history built on this. And my country/government whatever was/ is not being kind of them. You understand what i mean? This is very disturbing! Anyways, i sabella told everything i wanted to say so i was feeling beter. The other point is though i personally was very happy with it and learned alot from it, at sevan nişanyan’s speech mostly the armenian participants were bored and unhappy, some even left the speech. That part of the program mnight not be covering expectations. Some of my armenian friends said we dont need a moderator, we can teach our languages to each other at that time of theprogram. That is all.

12.08.05
I understood that mostly anyone in Tukrey knows what is going on in Armenia. I dont know what my Armenian friends were thinking actually but yesterdays literature speech was mostly about Turkish an deven Grek literature but not about Armenian and i was kind of uncomfortable again though I loved the speech+very useful for me..!

It is not just about the lessons, i am having lots of fun but as well i am learning many many things from my Armenian friends, which makes me want to learn more!

Last evening when we were talking about the gov. System in Armenia etc. One of my Armenian friends said, by somehow if turkish government givs eastern anatolia one old land back to us, there will be a chaos as well. It is strange that she was trying to find solutions to the problem of kurdish turkish population then if they get the land, though she knew sth. Like that would never happen.

13.08.05
My brian was so tired after yesterday. Lecture of Nazan maksudayn +Ferhat kentel was perfect and again many of my ideas were changed and most were supported. I am just wondering why my armenian friends do not discuss or tell their ideas, most of the time, at the lectures! I am trying to walk on thier shoes but i cant get it, if i were them and didnt want to talk about anything than it wouldnt come here. Anyways! I am happy that they are here!:) we are having lots of fun!!! Really it is going great. I should sleep earlier though :)

15.08.05
Saturday’s morning lecture was really nice and sth. That i was looking for. I lost the idea of nationalism, it is just constructed i believe!

Afternoon lecture with emel kurma was a great oportunity to understand that peace is the absence of violence not conflicts so that we always have sth. To do about it. But the map we did afterwards was kind of a little crisis form e, unfortunately. Some people does not have a belief in what we are doing so i am tired of trying to explain. Conflicts cannot be solved when you close your communication channells…anyways!

The trip to vakiflikoy both Saturday evening and Sunday morning were amazing! I strongly believe that we are same- even with our differences in religion and language. I was crying with armenian songs-what else can i say?

Support to the Armenia-Turkey Normalisation Process is a programme implemented by a Consortium of eight civil society organisations from both countries with the financial assistance of the European Union under the Instrument for Stability. 

The overall objective of the programme is to promote civil society efforts towards the normalisation of relations between Turkey and Armenia and towards an open border by enhancing people-to-people contacts, expanding economic and business links, promoting cultural and educational activities and facilitating access to balanced information in both societies. 

The Consortium partners include Civilitas Foundation (CF), Eurasia Partnership Foundation (EPF), Public Journalism Club (PJC), Regional Studies Center (RSC) from Armenia; and Anadolu Kültür, the Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey (TEPAV), Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly (hCa), and Hrant Dink Foundation from Turkey.  The programme will include a series of activities such as media support, TV talk shows and citizen reporting to contribute to better mutual understanding.

The programme will also include travelling discussions; workshops and trainings for youth and teachers; exchange of artists, architects, and entrepreneurs; fellowship opportunities and travel support to enhance encounters and cooperation across the border. Research on business and economic opportunities; celebrity discussions about the past; and opinion exchanges of high-level former officials will also be a part of the programme. 

One of the main pillars of the Programme is inclusiveness – to engage and support new actors in the dialogue process. To this end, the Consortium created a Grant Scheme to invite individuals and civil society organisations from Armenia and Turkey - other than the Consortium members - to propose and implement their own project ideas, which will contribute to the overall objective of the Programme and multiply the shared outcomes. 

The results of all activities will be shared with the public through the trilingual website, which will serve as a networking tool featuring the overall picture of the past, current, and future developments in Armenia-Turkey dialogue initiatives. 

For further information, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.