Al-Jazeera World - Common Pain (2012)

An examination of the deep wound that remains at the heart of Turkish-Armenian relations.

After conquering Constantinople in 1453, the young Ottoman sultan Mehmet the Second brought in large numbers of Armenians from Anatolia to settle in the newly-won city.

Over the centuries, they came to hold positions at all levels of the Ottoman state apparatus - as state ministers, advisers, tax collectors and even doctors in the sultan's palace. They excelled in trade and the crafts and helped construct many of the buildings and monuments that came to symbolise the splendour of Ottoman architecture. The Armenians became an important and recognised community within the Ottoman Empire.

But by the 1880s, a growing nationalist sentiment had emerged among Armenians, particularly intellectuals, with calls for the creation of a free, independent and united Armenia. The first Armenian political organisations were born.

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