On a clear day in Armenia’s capital Yerevan, the snow-capped peak of Mount Ararat dominates the horizon. This huge volcano, popularly known as the resting place for Noah’s Ark, has been Armenia’s sacred national symbol since biblical times. The problem is that Mount Ararat is out of bounds. It has, since 1921, been Turkish territory.
Alongside Ararat and Christianity, central to Armenian identity is the 1915 genocide, during which the Ottoman authorities killed as many as 1.2 million Armenians and ethnically cleansed populations that had lived in Anatolia since at least the 7th century BCE.
