Yet more Armenian Logic
According to a recent report appearing on ArmeniaLiberty.org, apparently it is safe to consume Turkish foodstuffs as determined by a "State Quality Official." Thus even though Armenia has no diplomatic relations with Turkey, the country can apparently continue to illegally do business with its centuries-old adversary, even though people are complaining that Turkish products are inferior. Turkish products enter Armenia by road transport via Georgia, since there is of course no open border crossing to Turkey along the Arax River.
There is no mention of the fact in this article that Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations with each other, and that trade between the two countries contradicts this reality. Nevertheless, importing Turkish goods is OK by Armenian government officials. Just so long as they meet Armenia's quality standards and of course government officials get a slice of the pie.
As I have stated in this blog before, it is becoming impossible to not purchase Turkish goods in stores--whether they are domestic goods, construction materials, or foodstuffs. In my experience Turkish stuff is crap--I have had several problems with Turkish fuses and electrical sockets burning out in my rented apartment, and my landlord refuses to install anything made elsewhere because Turkish things are inexpensive. In some stores I frequent I have noticed that some Armenian brands are no longer being carried to make room for Turkish imports or even those from Eastern Europe. And I have also made the point that if the border with Turkey ever opens, the Armenian market will be totally saturated with inferior, cheap Turkish goods, thereby driving Armenian companies out of business completely. It will happen without a doubt. No one is foreseeing this and no one cares. In the mean time, Turkish sunflower seeds and chewing gum are proudly advertised on TV, and people buy it without questioning where it's from or even caring. "Vochinch."
It is completely hypocritical that while Armenians around the globe cry about Turkey not recognizing the Armenian Genocide, no one from the Armenian nation makes a peep about pressuring the Armenian government to ban the import of Turkish goods into Armenia, including Armenian nationalist political parties. Armenians still have a lot to learn.
Read the full article here.
A State Quality Inspection official today published the findings of studies of 46 names of Turkish products imported and sold in Armenia, assuring the media that while some of them may fall short of certain requirements of Armenian quality standards, they are all safe for use and contain no threat to human life.
Thus, the Inspection responded to a series of recent "we-don’t-need-Turkish-junk" publications in the Armenian press alleging that products imported to Armenia from neighboring Turkey, in particular chocolate, put human lives at risk.
There is no mention of the fact in this article that Turkey and Armenia have no diplomatic relations with each other, and that trade between the two countries contradicts this reality. Nevertheless, importing Turkish goods is OK by Armenian government officials. Just so long as they meet Armenia's quality standards and of course government officials get a slice of the pie.
In the recent period the Inspection has penalized entities importing or selling Turkish products that fall short of domestic quality standards for a total of 2,300,000 drams (about $5,100)...
As I have stated in this blog before, it is becoming impossible to not purchase Turkish goods in stores--whether they are domestic goods, construction materials, or foodstuffs. In my experience Turkish stuff is crap--I have had several problems with Turkish fuses and electrical sockets burning out in my rented apartment, and my landlord refuses to install anything made elsewhere because Turkish things are inexpensive. In some stores I frequent I have noticed that some Armenian brands are no longer being carried to make room for Turkish imports or even those from Eastern Europe. And I have also made the point that if the border with Turkey ever opens, the Armenian market will be totally saturated with inferior, cheap Turkish goods, thereby driving Armenian companies out of business completely. It will happen without a doubt. No one is foreseeing this and no one cares. In the mean time, Turkish sunflower seeds and chewing gum are proudly advertised on TV, and people buy it without questioning where it's from or even caring. "Vochinch."
It is completely hypocritical that while Armenians around the globe cry about Turkey not recognizing the Armenian Genocide, no one from the Armenian nation makes a peep about pressuring the Armenian government to ban the import of Turkish goods into Armenia, including Armenian nationalist political parties. Armenians still have a lot to learn.
Read the full article here.
Comments
Yet, of course, it would have been much effective just to lobby for banning the import of Turkish goods altogether.
there was a war in 1915-1922 in turkey and the world. many people died. some of them was armenian and some of them was turks, kurds and azeri people. but the west only see the armenians who were killed. are not the turks and kurds humans? if you are a muslim, you died in war, but if you are armenian or christian , you have been genocided.
no need to go back 90 years ago. in 1992 armenians killed 720 people in the hocali city of azerbaycan, mainly women and children. which western country said something about this? noone. because they were turk and muslim. so they can be killed by armenians.
I tell armenians here, you need turkey and azerbaycan to live on peacefuly and weathy in your country. armenia is
surrounded by turks both in turkey azerbaycan and iran. one day, azeri people in iran will have the right to announce their voices in iran and then you will be trapped by turks and your only door out will be georgia.
please give up dreaming and see the facts. your allegations will do nothing to turkey. turkey is a big and strong country with 75 millon people.
But I am a descendant of genocide survivors. The only reason why I was born in the US was that my grandparents fled for their lives from what is now Elazig, aka Harput or Kharpert. They lost family members as a result of the policies being enforced by the Young Turk regime at the time. I do not blame the Turks as a nation for this, I blame the hatred that existed at the time against Armenians--who coexisted normally with their Turkish neighbors--on policies of the past. Until that happens, and until Turkey and Armenia develop official diplomatic relations, Armenians should boycott purchasing Turkish goods. But my opinion is not shared by the majority of Armenians living in Armenia.
The Armenians naturally need to develop peaceful relations with its neighbors. But Turkey needs to officially come to terms with its past in order to move on. And Azerbaijan needs to understand the fact that it lost Karabagh in a war it initiated, and it's not getting it back anytime soon.
I want to make clear that I am not antagonizing you. Rather I just wanted to share my own viewpoint in response to your comment, Although I do not entirely agree with it, I respect it nevertheless as being your opinion, which you have every right to express here. Thanks for reading and commenting.
why hasn't georgia been swamped by cheap turkish goods when it already has an open border? another point would be that armenian manufacturers needs turkey, georgia etc for exporting goods because the market here is too small.
anyway, i think economist know more about the answers to these questions than us.
As for the Genocide, it is considered by many human rights activists in Turkey that the massacres should be recognized as such if there is to be real democracy, respect for human and minority rights in Turkey. As a result, some very courageous Turks have done that, some of whom I knew in London.
The issue is with regards to reparations. To be honest, it is almost impossible to consider that land would ever be relinquished by Turk and as Ara Sarafian once joked, it would mean that Armenia would become a Moslem country overnight unless Armenia planned to ethnically cleanse the land of Kurds and Turks.
Not going to happen.
However, financial reparations, perhaps some concessions on customs duties etc as well as return of church property might be possible.
Anyway.
On the other hand, as Garo points out, officials are making money from this trade and also, when people are poor, boycotts of cheaper foreign goods are perhaps a luxury they can ill-afford.
By the way, speaking of blocade let us not forget that it had a good side to it. Were it not for the blocade Armenian economy would have been less developed now.
In terms of opening the border, I have heard at least one good arguement that Armenia's economy would be boosted at an extremely fast pace. However, the current construction boom and extraordinarily high, unrealistic real estate prices plus the amount of cars on the roads suggest that Armenia's economy is already booming. There are several factors at play to demonstrate this. But I have yet to be convinced that opening the Turkish border will further develop the economy in Armenia. Unless a flood of Turks start crossing the border, I don't understand where the increase in tourism will come from.
That's entirely another issue to address--where Armenia will be headed 50-100 years after the opened border as a viable nation-state with the ability to protect its heritage and culture once Turks start crossing and even start settling. Armenians have an uncanny knack for becoming assimilated with the overwhelming culture surrounding them. Open the border and you risk destroying Armenian identity once and for all. Armenians living in Istanbul for example are loyal to their country and are perfectly happy. You can't count on the mountains to protect Armenia any more.
Regarding tourism, the numbers for tourism are still very low, but could be increased due to the long term growth area being in attracting non-Armenian tourists to the country. Then, tuch tourists like to take in more than one country.
And as Turkey has an astonishly high level of tourism, especially among backpackers and not just Europeans who want to laze on Turkey's beaches, I do believe that they would cross over into Armenia and vice-versa.
Georgia-Armenia, Armenia-Iran, and Armenia-Turkey are all viable tourism packages.
As for Turks annihilating Armenian culture, I don't think they need an open border for that. Firstly, if they want to do that they via Georgia, and secondly, Armenians are pretty good at doing this themselves.
Plus, there's still this question regarding the importance of a closed border in safeguarding Armenia. That is, why hasn't Georgia become swamped with Turkish goods, and why aren't Turks moving en masse to Javakheti (Javakhk)?
Anyway, we'll see what will happen, but Armenia currently faces the prospect of being outpaced by regional developments and projects that will see it become more and more isolated from everywhere.
Until that changes, we have what some people call a "Serbian mentality" among nationalist Armenians. That is, that the whole world is out to destroy Armenia when regional isolation will probably do that first.
I mean, Armenian don't like the Georgians, Azerbaijanis and Turks. Great. That's three borders we'd like to see closed, right? Two of them are, yet ironically, much of the areas on borders that are open (Georgia and Iran) are inhabited by ethnic Azeris.
By some accounts, for example, there are more than 12 million Azeris on Armenia's southern border in Northern Iran.Even so, there are no problems there, and everyday, Armenians, Georgians, Azeris and Turks work quite well together in the two market towns of [Georgian] Sadakhlo and [Armenian] Bagratashen.
What does logic say about that?
Anyway, as the Georgian economy has not been crippled by an open border with Turkey I can only conclude that the issue is not the border being opened or closed, but rather the economic policies of the Armenian Government. If there's a good one, there's no problem. If there's a bad policy, there may be.
Also, the Armenian economy is too small for most companies and they are already looking to expand into new areas. Georgia is one, but the big prize is Turkey.
Anyway, European countries have open borders and are not flooded by each other's goods so I can only suppose that the issue is the local economy in Armenia, a lack of competitive alternatives and the inability to export most types of goods that are produced.
As for studies, there have been many. Some say that there will be a long-term gain for the Armenian economy but it the short term while Armenian companies try to compete there will be problems. Others say a lot of other things.
There's also a Turkish-Armenian Business Development Council with their take on things. It's headed by Armenians and Turks:
http://www.tabdc.org/
not just me i even impose my non-armenian friends not to encourage turkish economy by not buying their products, but what am i in the whole wild jungle ........
Thanks.