Author: Arbi Tashjian

Anew regulation paving the way for elections in minority foundations was officially implemented after it was published in the Official Gazette on Saturday. The move aims to end the frustration of the foundations, which mostly represent the Christian and Jewish communities of the country.

“The Community Foundations Election Regulation” had been in the works for almost one decade after an earlier regulation was suspended for an update. The regulation will cater to some 167 community foundations run by Greek Orthodox, Armenian, Jewish, Syriac, Chaldean, Bulgarian, Georgian and Maronite communities who are often referred to as “minorities,” though the term is not politically correct in a country striving to end past injustices to the communities.

The elections to pick new board members of the foundations that own and operate the communities’ properties, including places of worships like churches and synagogues, will be held only in cities where the foundations are located. For most foundations, this is Istanbul, the country’s most populated city which has historically been home to the most diverse of non-Muslim communities. In Istanbul, electoral constituencies will be required to be divided, just as in parliamentary elections where political parties nominate separate candidates for different constituencies, on the city’s European and Asian sides.

The election issue has been a source of dispute for a long time, especially in the presence of apparent internal rifts with opponents and supporters of current members of foundations, a pillar of the dwindled number of minorities. The Directorate of Foundations have held consultations with representatives of foundations for a draft regulation earlier, after the government annulled the earlier regulation in 2013, promising a better, more comprehensive one.

Foundations of non-Muslim minorities have a legal status under the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923, which granted them equality before the law and freedom to establish and run “religious and social institutions.”

Turkey boosted its outreach to its minorities in the past two decades and mostly resolved the issue of minority foundation properties seized by the state and other entities in the past. Some 1,084 properties were returned to those foundations between 2003 and 2018, while 20 places of worship were restored and handed over to the communities.

A 1936 charter had paved the way for foundations to acquire properties but a 1974 court ruling reversed the process, enabling the state to seize the properties minorities acquired after 1936. Properties were mostly returned to their original owners, and in the absence of owners, they were acquired by the Treasury.

New regulations in the 2000s enacted in compliance with Turkey's harmonization packages for European Union membership, helped the return of properties to foundations.

Under the new regulation, every foundation will be entitled to hold elections for seven board members once every five years. For larger foundations, the number of board members will be limited to 11 at the most. Board member candidates are required to be older than 18, citizens of the Republic of Turkey, be a member of the community the foundation serves and a resident of the constituencies for at least six months before elections. The candidates will also be required not to have a criminal record and be literate. Any one candidate will be allowed to serve as board member of three different foundations at most, and every board will be required to limit the number of board members with kinship to two.

The foundations will be required to formally notify the local Directorate of Foundations at least 60 days before the election, with proper documents about the election. The foundations will be barred from running proceedings on ownership of properties from the day they decide to hold elections to after the elections. The communities will also be required to form an election organization body.

BAKU, Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan's president warned Armenia on Thursday against making territorial claims from Karabakh, a region liberated from nearly three decades of Armenian occupation in 2020.

Speaking at the opening ceremony of the ninth Global Baku Forum themed Challenges to the Global World Order — organized by the Nizami Ganjavi International Center in the capital Baku — Ilham Aliyev said that if Yerevan continues to question the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Baku would also question Armenia's territorial integrity.

"If Armenia continues to question the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Azerbaijan will have no other choice and will question the territorial integrity of Armenia," he said.

Doing so would be a "useless and dangerous approach" for Armenia, said Aliyev, asserting that "the government of Armenia should understand this and stop trying to rewrite history."

The Azerbaijani president also argued that Baku, on the other hand, had historical grounds to call the territory of Armenia into question.

"The history of the last century clearly shows that the Soviet government cut off Zangezur, the historical region of Azerbaijan, in 1920 and gave it to Armenia. Therefore, if Armenia claims a status for Armenians in Karabakh, why shouldn't Azerbaijan claim a status for Azerbaijanis from West Zangezur?" Aliyev asked, underlining that Azerbaijanis have lived over a wide geography.

"This issue can lead to a dead end. The Armenian government should not forget the lessons of the second Karabakh War. Learn these lessons well and avoid any territorial claims against Azerbaijan," he added.

Relations between the two ex-Soviet countries have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Upper Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

New clashes erupted in September 2020, and a 44-day conflict saw Azerbaijan liberate several cities and over 300 settlements and villages that were occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.

A tripartite agreement was brokered by Russia to bring an end to the war in November 2020.

OSCE Minsk Group

Speaking on the activities of the Minsk Group, a body under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) tasked around three decades ago to solve the Karabakh dispute, Aliyev said the group had achieved no results in 28 years.

"Since Azerbaijan has resolved the Karabakh problem, the Minsk Group is no longer needed. Everyone understands that it was not possible for the Minsk Group co-chairmen to come together since the (beginning of the) Russia-Ukraine war. We have received some messages that the co-chairmanship of the Minsk Group will not operate. It's time for them to retire now," he said.

The OSCE Minsk Group, co-chaired by France, Russia and the US, was formed on March 24, 1992 to find a peaceful solution to the conflict, but to no avail. The co-chairs of the Minsk Group, who visited both countries periodically and met with the authorities, did nothing more than issuing warnings to the parties to abide by the cease-fire each time.

Also speaking at the forum was Vaira Vike-Freiberga, a former president of Latvia and co-chair of the Baku-based Nizami Ganjavi International Center.

Attending the forum were also Albanian President Ilir Meta, Bosnia and Herzegovina Presidential Council Chairman Sefik Djaferovic, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili, and Binali Yildirim, deputy chairman of Türkiye's Justice and Development (AK) Party.