YEREVAN. – Armenians likewise were invited to the Istanbul conference devoted to the Islamized Armenians in Turkey, and the invited Armenians delivered presentations on forcibly Islamized women and Armenians.

Armenian Institute of Archaeology and Ethnography researcher Sergey Vardanyan noted the aforesaid at a press conference on Saturday. 

Vardanyan said the conference was held from November 2 to 4, and there was a high level of security.

As per the researcher, scholars from five countries participated in, and 26 presentations were delivered at, the event, and four people attended it from Armenia.  

“My presentation was about the [Armenian] Genocide victims and witnesses,” Vardanyan added.

Reflecting on the current challenges of the Islamized Armenians in Turkey, the researcher noted that, first and foremost, they speak about the secret pain they have kept within. 

“They did not wish to talk about their family origins; this was perilous, which is pain.

“[But] the spirit of freedom in the past few years [in Turkey] enabled to raise, to some extent, their tragedy, [their] hidden pain. Now, they have just started to talk about their pain,” Sergey Vardanyan stated.     

He added, however, that there are no statistics yet as to how many crypto-Armenians there are in Turkey.