The Associated Press
February 7, 2008 Thursday 5:13 PM GMT
Turkey crafts law to return property confiscated from religious
minorities
By SELCAN HACAOGLU, Associated Press Writer
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.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
