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What Is Turkey Returning To Armenians?

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  • What Is Turkey Returning To Armenians?

    WHAT IS TURKEY RETURNING TO ARMENIANS?
    Raffi Bedrosyan

    Armenian Weekly
    http://www.armenianweekly.com/2011/08/31/property-return/
    Wed, Aug 31 2011

    The Turkish government recently announced that real estate assets
    confiscated by the State, which once belonged to Armenian, Greek,
    and Jewish charitable foundations, would be returned to the rightful
    owners, and that the government would pay compensation for any
    confiscated property that has since been sold to third parties. This
    is definitely a long overdue positive step in the right direction by
    the Turkish government, when compared with decades long injustice and
    discrimination of the past Turkish governments against its non-Muslim
    citizens. While this decree was hailed by the EU, Turkish media as
    well as the minority charitable foundations in Turkey, it was met by
    the Armenian Diaspora as an insufficient gesture at best, a cynical
    political trick at worst. Perhaps the following facts can help put
    the issue in context.

    Selamet Han In 1936, the Turkish government required the non-Muslim
    minority charitable foundations to submit a list of all their real
    estate assets to the state, which they did. In 1974, during the height
    of the Cyprus crisis and with inflamed hatred toward the Greeks, the
    Turkish government installed by the 1971 coup d'etat decreed that
    any assets not shown on the 1936 lists, that is, properties deeded
    to the charitable foundations after 1936, are illegally obtained and
    therefore, must be seized by the Turkish state. Some 1,410 properties
    willed or gifted to the non-Muslim charitable organizations from 1936
    to 1974, were confiscated by the State, thus suddenly depriving the
    foundations from their beneficial uses and revenues. These assets
    included apartment, school and office buildings, houses, shops and
    vacant land, mostly in or near Istanbul, where most of the remaining
    non-Muslim minority citizens in Turkey lived. The present government
    decree pledges to return 162 of the 1,410 assets confiscated in 1974.

    Over the past several years, the charitable foundations had tried
    through Turkish legal channels to get back these assets but to no
    avail. They had recently applied to the European Court of Human Rights,
    which had already ruled against the Turkish state on a number of cases.

    Below is a partial list of the Armenian charitable foundation assets
    to be returned by the government:

    1. Gedikpasha Armenian Protestant primary school - the building is
    already demolished, at present used as a park

    2. Gedikpasha Armenian Protestant Church - one apartment building
    in Kumkapi, a restaurant, a playground

    3. Surp Harutyun Armenian Church - several flats in Beyoglu

    4. Ferikoy Surp Vartanants Church - an apartment building and a
    vacant lot in Sisli

    5. Kurucheshme Surp Khatch Yerevman Church - one building in
    Arnavutkoy

    6. Kumkapi Surp Harutyun School - a store in Kumkapi and a store
    in Kadikoy

    7. Kumkapi Mayr Asdvadzadzin Church - a flat in Eminonu

    8. Yenikoy Surp Asdvadzadzin Church - a vacant lot in Istinye

    9. Bomonti Mkhitaryan Armenian Catholic School - school buildings,
    two shops and a flat in Sisli

    10. Yedikule Surp Prgitch (Holy Saviour) Armenian Hospital - a total of
    19 properties, including one building lot, a house and four shared lots
    in Sariyer, a residential building in Moda, 2 residential buildings
    in Sisli, one flat in Beyoglu, one store in Kapalicarsi Covered
    Bazaar, a house in Uskudar, one apartment building, one flat and a
    warehouse in Kurtulus, a four storey hotel in Taksim, a retail and
    office commercial building in Beyoglu, a flat in Chamlica, a 47,500
    sq. m. vacant lot in Beykoz, and a 44,000 sq. m. land adjacent to
    the Hospital, formerly the gardens of the Hospital, presently used
    as Zeytinburnu Soccer Stadium, a sports building, a parking lot and
    a tea garden, and last but not least, the valuable office building
    called Selamet Han in Eminonu, Istanbul.

    It is noteworthy to emphasize the significance of the Selamet Han
    office building, which was donated in 1953 by well known businessman
    and oil magnate Caloust Gulbenkian. The impressive six storey art
    nouveau style building was built in early 20. century by Armenian
    architect Hovsep Aznavour, builder of many of the Istanbul landmarks
    in the Pera/Beyoglu district. The Selamet Han building, confiscated
    by the state in 1974, fell into disrepair and is now in a dilapidated
    condition. The Surp Prgitch Foundation has announced that as soon as
    the building is given back, it intends to restore it and put into
    use as a boutique hotel, to generate much needed revenues for the
    hospital operations.

    The recent government decree at last and at least partially addresses
    the injustices of the 1974 confiscations, by pledging to return about
    ten percent of the 1,410 properties, mostly in Istanbul. However,
    there is a massive list of properties and assets belonging to the
    approximately thousands of Armenian churches, monasteries and schools
    in Anatolia, lost after 1915. One example to illustrate the enormity
    of this issue is the case of the Surp Giragos Armenian Church in
    Diyarbakir, which by itself had owned more than 200 properties in
    central Diyarbakir prior to 1915. Another interesting example is
    the Sanasaryan High School in Erzurum. This school, which provided
    education of such high caliber that it even surpassed the Istanbul
    Armenian schools in the late 19. century, was closed down in 1915. It
    is still a little known fact in Turkey that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
    when drumming up support and organizing the resistance to the Allied
    occupation of Anatolia, convened the famous Erzurum Congress in this
    Armenian school in July-August 1919. The Sanasaryan School Foundation,
    had built and owned one of the largest office buildings in Istanbul
    in the late 19th Century, in order to support the Sanasaryan School
    in Erzurum. It is also a little known fact that the famous Sanasaryan
    Han Office Building in Istanbul was seized first by the Ottoman and
    then the Turkish Republic governments and converted into the General
    Security and Police Headquarters of Istanbul. This building became
    notorious for the imprisonment, torture and murder of hundreds of
    intelligentsia during the military government regimes in the 1970's
    and 1980's.

    One last glaring example involves the lands belonging to the Surp Agop
    Armenian Catholic Cemetery, which were confiscated in the 1930s by
    the Istanbul municipal government. These lands were deeded in the 16.

    Century by the Ottoman Emperor Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to the
    Armenian people for cemetery uses, as a reward to his personal cook
    Manuk Karaseferyan of Van, who saved the Sultan from a poisoning
    plot against him by the Germans and Hungarians after the campaign
    to take Budapest. The Armenian cemetery was in use for nearly four
    centuries from 1560s to 1930s. As these vast lands lie adjacent to
    the most popular road in the centre of the city, they were deemed
    most valuable by the Istanbul government and expropriated from the
    Armenian Surp Agop Foundation without any compensation, despite years
    of legal struggles. At present, these lands are occupied by the State
    Radio and Television Headquarters, The Turkish Armed Forces Istanbul
    Headquarters, the Military Museum, many fashionable hotels such as
    Hilton, Regency Hyatt, Divan, several apartment and office buildings,
    as well as the expansive Taksim Park, which has walkways made from
    marble of the Armenian tombstones.

    The decree by the present government may seem insufficient or
    insignificant, but everything is relative, and this is an enormous
    first step of a long journey in the right direction when compared
    with past Turkish government policies. This journey requires mutual
    empathy, cooperation, encouragement and, above all, the uncovering
    of all hidden historic facts on the path to the creation of a common
    body of knowledge.




    From: A. Papazian
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