Duke University renews calls for Turkish student’s release

A representative of the prestigious Duke University in the United States reiterated on Monday its calls for the release of a Turkish doctoral student who is standing trial in Armenia for allegedly trying to smuggle old books to Turkey. Armenian prosecutors, however, remained clearly unwilling to drop their unusually harsh charges brought against Yektan Turkyilmaz despite his insistence that he was unaware of Armenian laws regulating the export of objects that are deemed “cultural or historical values.” The 33-year-old scholar also exposed his frustration with his two-month incarceration as he was cross-examined in a district court in Yerevan.

“We are very concerned about Yektan’s case,” Orin Starn, a Duke University professor and Turkyilmaz’s doctoral advisor, told RFE/RL as he attended the trial. “We know that he is a wonderful person and a brilliant scholar. We know that he has committed to speaking about the facts of 1915, the Armenian genocide.”

“I’m here to let it be known that Duke University fully supports Yektan,” he said. “I am the supervisor of his dissertation and I can not believe that he would knowingly break the law in any way. So I hope for his speedy release.”

The president of Duke University, Richard Brodhead, wrote to President Robert Kocharian on August 1, calling for the scholar’s release. "As the leader of a great country, you have the ability to intervene in this matter and to determine the appropriateness of the actions of your government and the Armenian prosecutors and police," he said. Kocharian has not yet responded to the letter, according to Starn.