Turks knock reconciliation on the head
KARS – Demolition work has begun on the divisive Monument to Humanity in the Turkish city of Kars. The 100-foot monument, also known as the Turkish-Armenian friendship statue, had a powerful enemy in Turkey's prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who denounced the work -- which depicts two faceless figures reaching out to each other -- as "freakish" and an affront to a nearby Islamic shrine, Radio Liberty reported.
Turkey's Hurriyet daily reports that a Turkish construction firm secured the coveted $180,000 contract to tear down the monument and has already succeeded in removing the 19-ton head of one of the figures after a wobbly start involving snapped cables and a search for a truck large enough to transport the offending pate to a secluded storage site.
A spokesman for the Kars municipality stressed there will be no reversal of the decision, noting somewhat officiously that the contract stipulates the demolition must not only be started but finished, and that "work should be done according to contract."
The sectional dismantling is set to continue, with workers cutting the statues into 18 removable pieces. The work is expected to last 10 days.
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