ISTANBUL (AP).- A hulking sculpture meant to promote reconciliation between Turkey and Armenia became an accidental emblem of their historic enmity after workers erected scaffolding towers and began to demolish it this week. Then, the mood soured further: a Turkish artist who championed the monument was stabbed. Bedri Baykam, a prominent critic of Turkey’s government, was hospitalized after the assault Monday, which followed a speech in which he condemned plans to tear down the sculpture near the Armenian border. It was an ominous conclusion to an artistic project linking two nations without diplomatic ties and whose relationship seems irrevocably defined by the mass killings of Armenians under Ottoman rule. On Sunday, Armenians mark the 96th anniversary of the start of what many international experts deem a