Turks and Armenians Anxious Over Meeting After a Century of Isolation

The Arax river marks the border between Turkey and Armenia. For 100 years now, the villagers of Halikisla and Bagaran have observed each other from opposite banks. They can see each other. But it's all they can do. The 1915 killing of Armenians, which Turkey refuses to call a genocide and the annexing of Armenia by the Soviet Union are the root causes of the severed ties. The villages may as well be at opposite ends of the earth. But after a silence of almost 100 years, recent attempts to reopen the border have awakened interest on both sides. Actually, since I am able to think, I don't remember a single incident with the other side. We don't know them; they don't know us. We are neighbors but there is a wall between us. It's like a house with two rooms. We live in one room and they live in the other. Neither they stick nails in the wall nor do we, and we live without bothering each other. Nowadays, only cattle cross the border.. Well, the animals cross the border, that's normal in animals there is a protocol building and you can go there to pick them up, they don't steal or slaughter them. If animals cross, I go to my police station and the officer waves a flag Then the officer on the other side sees it, and I, as the village mayor, go down to the river with the officer At that point, we make the exchange. The only way to reach the other side is by making a 1,000 km detour through Georgian territory. There is a stork up there, see. Over there on the Turkish side, there are three big communities that were Armenian, near the Ararat Mountain. The first one is Igdir, the second one Kogh, and the third one, there, is called is Kagasvan. On the Armenian side, the memories from World War I are still present, More than 1 million Armenians were slaughtered by the Turks. You have to understand me, of course I would like to return to my soil. But I don't want to do that as a tourist, in an organized group, When I do return, I want to do it as a landowner. The efforts of the Turkish and Armenian governments to achieve diplomatic normalization are perceived with skepticism in both sides. I think that opening the border with Turkey is not a good idea. There are still many problems to solve with Turkey, and you can't do it in a single shot. Armenia is a very poor state. They are much poorer than us. From such a poor people, what can you expect? From a nation like this? Just because we're neighbors, doesn't mean we can change the politics between our countries In that sense, we can't say everything is going to be solved by commerce or opening the border, that they are going to give us back our territories and so... because I don't think this is going to happen. Nowadays, between the Turks and Armenians there is a border much more difficult to overcome than a geographical divide: - it's a barrier of the mind This is my family's space in the cemetery. My father, my uncle, another uncle... my grandfather... He was born in Kagasvan, in what's now Turkey. Most of the oldest people buried here were deported from the other side. My grandfather's brother died during the genocide, and we put this gravestone here to commemorate him. Armenians of the diaspora are always talking about the massacres. But these things happened in war time, see what the Americans did in World War II, didn't they drop an atomic bomb on Japan? Surely 400,000 dead people constitute a massacre? But when it comes to Turkey, people are quick to judge. Why should I feel sorry for the Armenians? They are not from my country. If one day the door is open, we are going to know and accept each other. We want to meet everybody in the world! I cannot say that about the village, but I can say it about individuals, people have changed since Soviet times. And we need three generations to pass before we can solve this problem.