Armenian travel agents offer tours to Georgia, Greece, Bulgaria, Italy and Jordan among other countries, but 70 percent of Armenians that fly out of their country seem to prefer Turkey, especially Antalya, writes the Turkish Today’s Zaman.

“Armenians coming to Turkey may be a sign of normalization and accepting facts of life like swimming in the Mediterranean Sea. Any citizen of a landlocked country would feel the same — living in Ankara and dreaming of the Mediterranean all year long. This longing is evident in the posters of Antalya’s attractive sun-drenched beaches hanging on the walls of buildings in Yerevan,” the source writes.

“While it is a dream destination for some, it is a provocation for others… It did not take too long for a youth group from the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Dashnaktsutyun, to rally for the removal of those posters. They went to the Yerevan mayor’s office and demanded that the Antalya posters be brought down and not hung up again. The mayor’s office has not yet acted on the request. If the borders are opened soon, they will never be brought down,” the source writes.

“The nationalists’ logic against traveling and vacationing in Turkey in general and in Antalya in particular is just like the Turkish leftists’ logic: Every penny that goes to the ‘enemy’ will return to us as arms and aggression or exploitation. This must be the universal language of all nationalists and chauvinists… Another slogan shared by the nationalists on both sides of the border says: ‘Turkey shouldn’t have won us over.’ Turkish nationalists said the same thing when nearly three dozen militants belonging to the notorious terrorist organization, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), came from Iraq and surrendered to Turkish authorities. As promised, they were interrogated but due to a lack of criminal records they were released. They returned to their hometowns with joy and were greeted with public demonstrations. This was enough to forget why they came back: to surrender and end hostilities. The government was accused of giving the impression that the mighty Turkish army was defeated by the terrorists and all that nonsense,” Today’s Zaman writes.

“Government employees are not officially warned against vacationing in Turkey…The Armenian Ministry of the Economy is encouraging competitive domestic tours to destinations like Lake Sevan, the mountain resort of Tsakhkadzor, the mineral water spa of Jermuk and the historical Nagorno-Karabakh region. Presently vacation packages to these sights start at about $700 while Antalya offers a week of good service, sea and sun for only $450,” writes the newspaper.

“Well, you may be a patriot, but there is nothing better than a good warm vacation after a whole year’s hard work, especially when your old foe is serving you with a friendly smile,” the source writes.