It is so hard to even start talking about the Turkish-Armenian conflict; so, I am just going to talk about my personal take on it.

As a Turk living in the US, it saddens me to see people from other countries recognize my country and Armenia only through our conflict. They do not know much about each of the countries but they know that we have been in conflict since the early times of this century.However, what saddens me most is to actually see these two countries with such similar history and culture to be in conflict and closely observe my generation grow up not recognizing our commonalities. Today, I read an article from Dr. Stepan Grigoryan, the chairman of the board of the Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation in Yerevan, who in his article pointed out that people are closer to each other than their governments. He claims that people of both countries want reconciliation and end of the conflict; however, political realities do not represent this view.

Armenia and Turkey are so similar to each other, our histories are so intertwined that it is amazing to see this conflict persist this long. We don’t need to put much effort into confirming this hypothesis, just search Wikipedia for Armenian Cuisine. Almost 90% of Turkish cuisine and Armenian cuisine overlaps. Or look at our habits, the games we play, etc. Thousands of things I cannot even count. Even the way we raise new generations is similar. The only difference is Turkish side finds Armenian side in fault and Armenian side claims Turks are to blame. In the mean time, generations are growing up, not knowing each other, not realizing the past is out there to hunt their future, and only learning how to perpetuate this fight where there are only losers!

I do realize this writing sounds like a pep talk and does not seem to contain any substantive facts. Yes, I do know there are complicated things involved, yes I do know it is hard to reconcile when both parties had lost so many people, and yes I do know there were dramatic events the survivors of which still cannot let go (from both sides). However, I do also know if people were to hold on to these complexities and never reconcile, today there would not be a Vietnam with strong relations with the US, there would not be an Austria, who faught againts Britain and France in the World War I, with close relations to them now, or there would not be a Latin America, which had to faught for its independence, trading with Portugal or Spain now.

My point is I think it is time for the people of Turkey and Armenia to get to know each other and to demand reconciliation from bottom up, not top down. We, as neighbors, do need to strengthen each other, not weaken!