US embassy cable - 05YEREVAN1625

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 YEREVAN 001625 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/CACEN 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/08/2025 
TAGS: PREL, PHUM, PGOV, TU, GG, AM 
SUBJECT: HOLD THE PRESSES:  TURKISH SCHOLAR RETURNS TO U.S. 
READY TO TALK 
 
REF: YEREVAN 1479 
 
Classified By: Ambassador John M. Evans for 1.4 (b,d). 
 
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SUMMARY 
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1. (C) Yektan Turkyilmaz, the Turkish citizen and Duke 
University doctoral student arrested for attempting to 
smuggle controlled books and manuscripts out of Armenia 
(reftel), departed Yerevan for his home in Durham, North 
Carolina on September 2.  Despite claims in court to the 
contrary, Turkyilmaz told us that he was aware of the export 
prohibitions on the books he purchased, and that he had 
attempted to bribe airport employees (as he claimed he 
typically did during previous visits).  The Yerevan court 
that convicted Turkyilmaz returned volumes of confiscated 
research materials and kept all but the modern books and 
manuscripts.  Pleased with his release and with Embassy 
Yerevan assistance, Turkyilmaz said he nonetheless planned to 
"discuss publicly" the "human rights abuses" he claims he 
suffered and witnessed during his incarceration.  Turkyilmaz 
said prison guards never physically abused him, but that he 
witnessed interrogators "systematically beating and raping" 
other prisoners.  End Summary. 
 
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TURKISH SCHOLAR ADMITS GUILT, PLEASED WITH OUTCOME 
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2. (C) In meetings with us after his release from the 
Armenian National Security Service (NSS) detention center, 
Yektan Turkyilmaz said he came to Armenia to buy books for 
his collection as he had done "many, many times before." 
Turkyilmaz admitted to us he was aware of the export 
prohibitions on the books he purchased, and that he had 
attempted to bribe airport employees (a standard procedure, 
he explained, during each of his previous visits).  In a 
slideshow he displayed for us on his returned laptop, 
Turkyilmaz proudly reviewed pictures of his personal 
collection of more than ten thousand antique Armenian-, 
Ottoman Turkish-, and Kurdish-language books, many of which 
he said he had purchased in, and already illegally 
transported from, Armenia.  Though the court confiscated 
eighty-eight of his recent purchases, Turkyilmaz had 
digitally copied parts from each of the books important to 
his research along with thousands of pages of documents from 
the Armenian National Archives.  The court returned his 
research materials, digital and computer equipment, and cell 
phone. 
 
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INTERROGATORS ALLEGE SPYING, NOT SMUGGLING 
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3. (C) Turkyilmaz said prison guards never physically abused 
him, but that "KGB" interrogators tried to intimidate him 
into admitting that he was spying for the U.S. or Turkey. 
Turkyilmaz claimed that within the first 72 hours following 
his arrest, interrogators prohibited him from placing phone 
calls, appointed an attorney who forcefully encouraged him to 
sign a statement admitting his guilt, shouted derogatory 
ethnic slurs, and threatened physical harm.  The 
interrogation turned to questioning about the books only 
after "days and days" of assertions and denials about his 
"true motives," Turkyilmaz claimed.  At one point, according 
to Turkyilmaz, his NSS interrogators claimed they were 
members of ASALA (Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of 
Armenia) "the group that assassinated Turkish diplomats in 
the 70s and 80s."  "Do you know who we are?  Do you know what 
we do to Turks?" he quoted them as saying. 
 
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SCHOLAR ALLEGES PRISONER ABUSE, HUMAN RIGHTS VIOLATIONS 
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4. (C) Turkyilmaz claimed to "know for sure" that NSS 
interrogators are systematically beating prisoners at the 
Yerevan detention center.  He drew a diagram of his cell 
(Number 28), and a small port window where he claimed he 
witnessed officers escorting or dragging talking or screaming 
"Russian women" to showers, where they either resisted, or 
sometimes engaged without resistance, in sex.  Turkyilmaz 
estimated the detention center holds approximately 50 male 
and female Armenian, Russian and Kurdish prisoners.  He 
asserted he heard "awful screams," and saw people who NSS 
officers had "beaten horribly." Guards allowed some inmates 
to "destroy" other prisoners as they stood by without 
interfering, he claimed.  Interrogators periodically escorted 
his own cell mates "Ara Bostanciyan," "Ardavst Ghazaryan," 
and "Artur Sarkisyan" upstairs where Turkyilmaz claimed he 
could also hear them scream.  They returned "black, blue, and 
bleeding," he claimed.  "Many of the prisoners were either 
systematically beaten or raped." 
 
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COMMENT:  TURKYILMAZ READY TO RAISE ISSUES WITH PRESS 
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5. (C) Turkyilmaz's Duke University advisor Orin Starn, who 
attended the court hearings, told us that he advised 
Turkyilmaz to avoid negative press statements until safely 
out of Armenia.  As he prepared to depart, Turkyilmaz told us 
that he looked forward to the opportunity to speak to the 
press freely and openly about his ordeal, and speculated that 
comments critical of the Armenian Government would help him 
smooth over relations with Turkish authorities.  Turkyilmaz, 
a Kurd who speaks Armenian and has acknowledged the events of 
1915 in the Ottoman Empire as "genocide," predicted he will 
have legal difficulties when he returns to Turkey, and 
asserted to us that Turkish authorities have already 
contacted his family to inquire about his anticipated date of 
return. 
 
6. (C) Turkyilmaz told us he had been arrested in Turkey for 
participating in student demonstrations, but declined to give 
further details.  He avoided answering questions about his 
U.S. student visa application, in which we suspect he did not 
acknowledge the prior arrest. 
EVANS