Armenian, Turkish Publishers Meet in Istanbul

ISTANBUL (Panorama.am) — Antares publishing house in cooperation with the Turkish Publishers Association has organized a meeting of Armenian and Turkish publishers in Istanbul, Ermenihaber reports. Organized within the programme of Support to the Armenia-Turkey normalization process, the event brought together leading publishers form Armenia and Turkey, translators, representatives of NGOs and copywriting agencies.

According to the source, the President at the Turkish Publishers Association Metin Celal and Secretary General at the Association Özgür Akin made introductory remarks, followed by a speech of Sevan Deyrmenjian, Head of the “Araks” publishing house operating in Turkey, who presented a report on the history of Armenian publishing and the input of the “Araks” publishing house in the modern Armenian publishing.

Head of the publishing department at Yerevan-based Antares Media Holding Hripsime Madoyan stressed that the Armenians and the Turks as century-long neighbors have to know more about each other.

“Literature has no boundaries and gates. The current project will help us to know better, enrich each other, establish professional links and proceed with consolidated efforts,” Madoyan stressed, reflecting also on some translations of Turkish literature for the Armenian readers published by Antares.

Director at Antares Publishing House Armen Martirosyan spoke about state-sponsored literary fund established in the Media Hold which is aimed at promoting publishing and translations from the Armenian to other languages.

Director at Armenian Institute of Literature Arqemik Nikoghosyan, representative of “Zangak” publishing house Artur Mesropyan, “Edit Print” house Shavarsh Karapetyan and Samvel Gasparyan from “Areg” publishing house delivered speeches.

The second part of the meeting covered topics related to the Armenian publishing in Turkey, the teaching of the Armenian in the Armenian schools in Turkey, preparing specialist of Turkish, Western and Eastern Armenian languages, the prospects of publishing trade between the two countries as well as issues concerning the prospects of the normalization of the bilateral relations through cultural links.