Associated Press, June 17, 2005, "Turkish researcher arrested in Armenia on suspicion of smuggling antique books"

Yerevan, Armenia

A Turkish researcher was detained at Yerevan airport on Friday on suspicion of smuggling antique books out of Armenia, the National Security Service said.

An official for the security agency, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that Turkish citizen Yektan Turkyilmaz had been arrested in possession of books dating from the 17th to 20th centuries and was suspected of seeking to take them secretly on a flight to Turkey.

Turkyilmaz, of Duke University in North Carolina, is likely to be fined although the offense he is accused of carries a maximum five-year jail term, the security official said.

Books older than 50 years cannot be taken out of Armenia without special permission. Turkyilmaz was in Armenia to carry out research in the Armenian national archives, the first Turk to be allowed to do so.

Armenia and Turkey do not have diplomatic relations because of dispute over the killings of Armenians during World War I, which Armenians say was genocide.

Armenians say some 1.5 million of their people were killed as the Ottoman Empire forced them from eastern Turkey between 1915 and 1923 in a deliberate campaign of genocide.

Turkey says the death count is inflated and insists that Armenians were killed or displaced in the civil unrest during the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.