Turkish Education Minister Ömer Dinçer held a meeting with a group of Armenian grade school students in Ankara on Wednesday, promising to evaluate their requests for the removal of perceived misrepresentations of the Armenian community in textbooks used in Turkish grade school education.
Students from the private Pangaltı Armenian School visited Dinçer at his office in Parliament with their teachers in order to deliver some of their requests to the minister. Grade school student Biranda Özyılmaz, spokesperson for the student group, said that “there are some humiliating expressions regarding Armenians which upset us. We asked our minister to take out these parts. He asked us to note down all these misrepresentations and to send them in a file to him,” saying that Dinçer will analyze their suggestions before reaching a conclusion. Özyılmaz said that finding a solution to this issue will increase the effectiveness of lessons in Armenian schools.
The students stated that their school is thankful to the ministry for fulfilling the requests of other Armenian students, such as publishing science and mathematics textbooks in Armenian, sending the textbooks to the schools on time and eliminating bureaucracy, including allowing students to register in their own schools rather than being required to travel to an administrative center.
Dinçer said he was satisfied with the outcome of the Armenian students' visit. The minister, mentioning another meeting he held with Turkish minority school administrators on the issues facing minority schools, said the ministry would deal immediately with the issues that have arisen from these two visits.
During the visit, Pangaltı school director Karekin Barsamyan also made an important statement on the friendship between the Armenian and Turkish communities. Highlighting the centuries-long history of fraternity between Armenians and Turks under Ottoman rule, Barsamyan said: “Instead of always citing the dark sides of our common history, which constitutes a very short period, we should promote the peaceful aspects of our history. Teaching Armenian-Turkish friendship to our children would be to the benefit of both Armenians and Turks.”
Bartamyan also criticized France's Armenian genocide bill, penalizing any denial of claims that an Armenian genocide took place at the hands of Ottoman Empire during World War I. “What France is doing is akin to intervening in our family relationship. We are the children of this country, and we can overcome any problems between ourselves through cooperation,” Barsamyan asserted.
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