THE ARMENIAN CIVIL SERVANT CONFLICT BETWEEN THE PATRIARCHY AND THE COMMUNITY

Hurriyet Daily News
Dec 1 2009
Turkey

The Armenian community and its patriarchy are embroiled in a conflict
over the patriarchy’s reported involvement in choosing a Turkish-born
Armenian to work in the government’s EU Secretariat office. ‘The
patriarchy should involve itself in matters of religion and its flock.

It should avoid politics,’ says one Armenian scholar

The decision to appoint an Armenian to a civil service job looks
to have created a rift rather than bring joy to Turkey’s Armenian
community.

In recent months, there have been press reports that the EU General
Secretariat plans to hire a civil servant of Armenian origin. The
secretariat, affiliated to the office of State Minister Egemen
BagıÅ~_, was to hire an expert consultant with screenings to be held
by the Turkish Armenian patriarchy.

An announcement was then run on Lraper, the patriarchy’s official
Internet site, indicating that Archbishop Aram AteÅ~_yan had approved
the matter. After the story appeared in the media, the secretariat
immediately released a statement denying that the patriarchy was
holding the screenings.

Patriarchy officials subsequently removed the announcement from the
Web site despite receiving hundreds of applications. They also refused
to make comments until Tuesday.

Reproachful statement from patriarchy

The primary reason behind the patriarchy’s desire to step in and
conduct the screenings was to measure the candidates’ fluency in
Armenian because no Turkish university has an Armenian language
and literature department and instructors assigned to grammar and
literature classes at Armenian schools are often limited to what they
have learned from their families.

A news story by Sefa Kaplan was published on the front page of
daily Hurriyet on Tuesday with the title "The first Armenian to work
for the government outside a university," putting the story on the
agenda again.

According to Kaplan’s story, Leo Suren Halepli, who was born in
Istanbul in 1981, passed the secretariat’s exam and is scheduled to
be the first Turkish citizen of Armenian origin to become a civil
servant outside an academic setting, provided he passes the security
investigation by the National Intelligence Organization, or MIT.

Janet Donel from the Patriarchy said: "The screenings were started
by the patriarchy two months ago, but we were excluded."

Donel gave a vague reply to a question from the Hurriyet Daily News
& Economic Review regarding whether the selected candidate had fit
the criteria of the patriarchy. "We did not choose the mentioned
candidate. That is all we can say."

‘It is not like a priest would be hired for the patriarchy’

Pakrad Oztukyan, editor for the daily Agos and one of the community’s
leading members, criticized the patriarchy’s stance. "It is not like
a priest would be hired for the patriarchy and that they would get
involved. It was absurd when it was announced that the patriarchy
would handle the screenings two months ago because we are not an
ecclesiastic community."

Oztukyan also released background information on the events:
"BagıÅ~_ had visited the patriarchy and the topic came up during
the conversation; that is all. Then patriarchy officials invented
stories about it."

Arsen AÅ~_ık, a retired scholar from Bogazici University also agreed
with Oztukyan: "The patriarchy should involve itself in matters of
religion and its flock. It should avoid politics."

Criticizing the press

AÅ~_ık also criticized the stance of the Turkish media. "The story
emphasizes that the candidate is to be investigated by MIT. In turn,
it appears the media are trying to provoke a reaction against the
candidate coming from a minority group. The matter is being presented
to the public as if it is a state secret."

Ara Kocunyan, owner of the daily Armenian newspaper of Istanbul,
Jamang (Time), also made similar criticisms against the press.

"There were attempts to pull the patriarchy into the center of a
polemic discussion." However, unlike Oztukyan and AÅ~_ık, Kocunyan
defended the patriarchy, saying, "Of course the patriarchy would
choose the names from its community.

Kocunyan also said Halepli was one of the most likely to be selected.

What Deputy Mayor Barın says

Many people of Armenian origin were appointed to civil service
positions in both the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey
before 1968, after which the process was halted due to various reasons
related to domestic politics.

A new process began when Vasken Barın was selected as deputy mayor
of Å~^iÅ~_li in the mid-1990s. Barın has been serving the public
alongside Mayor Mustafa Sarıgul for more than 10 years.

Emphasizing the positive aspects of the developments, he said,
"It is extremely positive that a young man from our community is to
be assigned to such a position, but Halepli would not be the first
Armenian in government service as is being said in the press.

"There were many deputies in Parliament during the Republican era,
there are inspectors at the Education Ministry and there is me. If
they are speaking in terms of the EU, then yes, Halepli is a first."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress