"Turkey Will Eat Us Is Incomprehensible"

The Argument, As Stated

The Ghevondyan formulation distills to a one-sentence syllogism: If Turkey were a threat to Armenian existence, 100,000 Armenians would not be living and working there. They are. Therefore, Turkey is not a threat. Therefore, Armenian historical fear of Turkey is "incomprehensible."

The first sentence is true: there is a substantial Armenian-citizen labour-migrant population in Turkey, primarily in Istanbul, primarily women working as domestic helpers, primarily undocumented or in irregular legal status. Estimates of size range from ~50,000 to ~100,000+ depending on the methodology and the year. The Armenian community of Turkey (Bolsahay) — the historical native Armenian population of Anatolia and Constantinople, distinct from labour migrants — is a separate, much smaller, much older population whose situation is also documented.

The remaining sentences are the category error.

Why The Argument Is A Category Error

The phrase «Թուրքիան մեզ կուտի» is, in Armenian political vocabulary, a statement about the Republic of Turkey as a sovereign state actor with respect to the Republic of Armenia as a sovereign state actor. The threat assessment is about: Turkey-Armenia border posture, Turkey-Armenia diplomatic posture, Turkish state support for Azerbaijan in the 2020 and 2023 conflicts, Turkey's continued non-recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide, Turkish state veto over Armenian-NATO and Armenian-EU integration tracks, and the historical record of the Ottoman state with respect to its Armenian population.

None of those threats are addressed by the existence of 100,000 Armenian economic migrants in Istanbul. The migrants are individuals taking individual economic decisions in a labour market they have access to. They are not, individually or collectively, evidence about Turkish-state policy toward the Republic of Armenia.

The category error: Ghevondyan substitutes individual-level economic data for state-level political-security assessment. These are different categories. Conflating them is a rhetorical move, not an argument.

The Same Argument, Applied Elsewhere, Demonstrates The Error

Consider the parallel form:

• "The concept 'Russia is a threat to Ukraine' is incomprehensible — millions of Ukrainians lived and worked in Russia before 2022."
• "The concept 'Saudi Arabia is hostile to Iran' is incomprehensible — there are Iranian Shia pilgrims in Mecca every year."
• "The concept 'China is a threat to Taiwan' is incomprehensible — millions of Taiwanese have business interests in mainland China."

Each of those statements is logically identical to Ghevondyan's. Each is also obviously absurd as a state-level threat assessment. The presence of individuals from one country in another country says nothing about the security relationship between the two states. The argument fails the moment it is applied to any other geopolitical pairing.

Where The 100,000 Armenian Migrants In Turkey Actually Are

For accuracy: the ~100,000 Armenian-citizen migrants in Turkey are concentrated in specific patterns that the Ghevondyan framing does not engage with:

• Demographic skew: heavily female, heavily working-age, heavily from rural Armenia (Shirak, Lori, Tavush regions disproportionately).
• Sector skew: domestic work, child care, elder care, light cleaning. Often live-in. Often undocumented or visa-overstay.
• Legal precarity: the population is structurally exposed to deportation risk, wage theft, and lack of consular protection from a Republic of Armenia that has no diplomatic relations with the Republic of Turkey.
• Why they go: Armenian rural-economy collapse, post-2020 wage stagnation, absence of equivalent labour markets in EAEU member states.

The 100,000 are not evidence of Turkey's hospitable disposition. They are evidence of the structural failure of the Armenian rural economy to retain its female working-age population. Citing them as proof of Turkish goodwill is rhetorically convenient and substantively incoherent.

What This Argument Is Actually Doing — Politically

The function of Ghevondyan's April 25 statement, in OWL's read, is normalisation prep. The Pashinyan government's strategic objective is a normalised Armenia-Turkey relationship — open border, diplomatic relations, eventual trade. To get there, the historical Armenian fear of Turkey must be defused in domestic political discourse. «Թուրքիան մեզ կուտի» is the populist condensation of that fear. Calling it «incomprehensible» is the next step in the normalisation script.

The script's beats, executed across the past 30 days alone:

• Pashinyan condemns April 24 flag-burning (April 24).
• Speaker Simonyan calls it «ամոթալի» (April 24).
• Turkey formally demands prosecution; Yerevan does not push back (April 25).
• Pashinyan mocks Tsitsernakaberd mourners as «երեքմանեթանոց լաց» (April 25).
• Pashinyan holds khorovats party day after Genocide Remembrance (April 25).
• Ghevondyan dismisses historical fear of Turkey (April 25 — today).

One hour at a time, the political ecosystem is being acclimated to a new register where pre-2018 Armenian historical-security vocabulary is positioned as «անհասկանալի» — incomprehensible — and therefore not legitimate political speech.

What The Opposition Will Say (Or Should)

The historical Armenian fear of Turkey is not «incomprehensible.» It is, in chronological reverse:

• The Turkish state's military-industrial support to Azerbaijan that materially enabled Azerbaijan's 2020 victory and 2023 takeover of Nagorno-Karabakh.
• Turkish state veto power over Armenian movement on Western institutional integration.
• Turkish state pressure on third countries to delay or reverse Armenian Genocide recognition.
• Turkey's hosting of senior Azerbaijani military leadership during the 2020 war.
• Decades of Turkish state denial of the 1915 Genocide.
• The 1915 Genocide itself.

None of these are «incomprehensible.» They are documented. The Armenian voter who carries this list in their mind on June 7, 2026 is the voter Ghevondyan's argument was designed to convert. Whether the conversion works is the question the election answers.

Cross-References Inside OWL

• "Three-Ruble Criers": Pashinyan Mocks Tsitsernakaberd Mourners
• Condemn The Citizens, Book The Barbecue
• Turkey Officially Demands Armenia Punish The Flag-Burners
• The PM Who Defends Turkey But Has Never Defended an Artsakh Church
• The Three From The Sauna

Sources

• Gevorg Ghevondyan statement, April 25, 2026 (armtimes.com).
• Public estimates of Armenian-citizen labour migration to Turkey (academic + NGO + IOM sources, 2015-2024).
• Historical record of Turkish-Armenian state relations 1991-2026.
• Documentation of Turkish state support to Azerbaijan during the 2020 war (defence-procurement records, drone-supply chain).

OWL is an anonymous collective of Armenian journalists. We take no money from any political party, bloc, movement, oligarch, foreign government, or foundation. On April 25 — the day of Pashinyan's BBQ — we report a Civil Contract figure dismissing historical Armenian fear of Turkey. Voters of June 7 are entitled to the record.

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