TURKEY CRAFTS LAW TO RETURN PROPERTY CONFISCATED FROM RELIGIOUS MINORITIES
By Selcan Hacaoglu, Associated Press Writer

The Associated Press
February 7, 2008 Thursday 5:13 PM GMT
Ankara Turkey

Turkey’s parliament is considering a law that would allow properties
confiscated by the state to be returned to Christian and Jewish
minority foundations.

The reform appears designed to meet conditions set by the European
Union for Turkey’s membership in the bloc, but critics say the
measure would not go far enough. Parliament is expected to vote as
soon as next week on returning property to religious minorities,
and the ruling party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has the
majority required to approve the law.

Parliament first approved it in November 2006. But the president
at the time, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, was a secularist who was often at
odds with Erdogan’s Islamic-rooted government, and he vetoed it. The
country’s population of 70 million, mostly Muslim, includes 65,000
Armenian Orthodox Christians, 23,000 Jews, and fewer than 2,500 Greek
Orthodox Christians.

The law would allow foundations to recover confiscated properties,
but it was not clear if they would be allowed to reclaim property that
has been sold or whether they would be compensated for the loss of
such properties. President Abdullah Gul, a close associate of Erdogan,
is expected to approve the measure.

The Istanbul-based Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, an
independent research center known as TESEV, predicted that Turkey would
face more criticism from Europe if the law "does not ensure the return
or indemnification of the seized assets of non-Muslim foundations."

Religious minorities have often complained of discrimination in Turkey,
which has a history of conflict with Greece, which is predominantly
Christian, and with Armenians, another mostly Christian group. Many
Armenians accuse Turkish authorities of trying to exterminate them
early in the last century, but Turkey says mass killings at that
time were the result of the chaos of war, rather than a systematic
campaign of genocide.

The law allows foundations to reclaim properties, including churches,
school buildings and orphanages, that are registered under the names of
saints. The law does not address some types of confiscated properties,
such as cemeteries or minority school properties.

The proposed bill said authorities shall consider "the international
principle of reciprocity" in implementing it, in an apparent reference
to Turkish demands that similar measures are implemented in Greece
to expand rights of the ethnic Turkish minority there.

Luiz Bakar, the spokeswoman for the Armenian Patriarchate, an
Orthodox Christian group based in Istanbul, expressed concern over
uncertainities about how the law would be implemented.

"We are ethnic Armenians, but we are Turkish citizens, we are not
foreigners. So, applying the principle of reciprocity to us would
amount to discrimination," Bakar said.

"The inclusion of this provision in the draft law shows that the
state is still not regarding non-Muslim citizens as equal citizens,"
the TESEV report said.

Turkey seized some properties owned by minority foundations in 1974
around the time of a Turkish invasion of the island of Cyprus that
followed a coup attempt by supporters of union with Greece.