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Parliamentary Assembly Council of Europe
Doc. 11510
25 January 2008
The state of cultural heritage in Turkey
Motion for a resolution
presented by Mr Hovannisian and others
This motion has not been discussed in the Assembly and commits only the
members who have signed it
The genocide of the Armenian people in the final years of the Ottoman Empire
is duly documented by incontrovertible evidence housed in the official
archives of France, Germany, Italy, Austria, the United Kingdom, Canada, the
United States, and other nations around the world. It resulted not only in
the death and dispossession of more than two million human beings but also
in the decimation of the Armenian patrimony, its ways of life, and its
foundational contributions to western culture and world civilisation.
Today, virtually no Armenians remain upon their historic homelands
currently incorporated in the Republic of Turkey, and thousands of churches,
monasteries and other spiritual and secular treasures of European
architectural heritage have been destroyed or sent into disrepair.
Despite Turkey’s long-standing official denial of the genocide and its
attendant dispossession, a happy exception to the general rule has been the
recent restoration of the Armenian Church of the Holy Cross on the island of
Aghtamar in Lake Van. Hopefully, this trend will continue into the future,
but it must be recorded that the Turkish authorities have forbidden the
placement of a cross atop the church. Holy Cross remains crossless and,
having been converted into a museum, is closed to prayer, worship and
religious ceremony.
Turkey is a member state of the Council of Europe subject to a full
undertaking of all commitments thereto and duties thereunder, and has long
sought ultimate accession to membership of the European Union. In
particular, it is a party to the European Cultural Convention and the
Convention for the Protection of the Architectural Heritage of Europe.
Taking the foregoing into account, the Parliamentary Assembly invites
Turkey to take the following measures pursuant to its international
obligations and the European identity to which it aspires:
– in the finest example of integrity and leadership proffered by the
Federal Republic of post-war Germany, to face history and finally recognise
the ever-present reality of the Armenian genocide and its attendant
dispossession, to make restitution appropriate for a European country, and
so to achieve reconciliation through the truth;
– to provide a vision and an implementing plan of action worthy of a
truly and fully European Turkey, including a comprehensive resolution of
issues relating to the freedom of expression and reference to the genocide
in state, society and education; and to the freedom of conscience, the
unrestricted training of seminarians, and the repair of religious and other
cultural sites and their return to the Armenian and other relevant minority
communities;
– in particular, to conduct in good faith an integrated inventory of
Armenian and other cultural heritage destroyed or ruined during the past
century, based thereon to develop a strategy of priority restoration of
ancient and mediaeval capital cities, churches, fortresses, cemeteries, and
other treasures located in historic Armenia, and to render the
aforementioned fully operational cultural and religious institutions;
– and, finally, to launch the long-awaited celebration of the Armenian
cultural heritage based on a full Turkish-Armenian normalisation anchored in
the assumption of history, the pacific resolution of all outstanding
matters, and a complete Europeanisation of their relationship.
The Assembly also invites the Monitoring Committee, in the framework
of the post-monitoring dialogue on the honouring of commitments and
obligations by Turkey, to accord continued attention to the recognition,
restoration and restitution of our common European heritage as tendered
herewith.
Signed 1:
HOVANNISIAN Raffi, Armenia, EPP/CD
AGRAMUNT Pedro, Spain, EPP/CD
BANIAS Ioanni, Greece, UEL
BARTOS Walter, Czech Republic, EDG
BEMELMANS-VIDEC Marie-Louise, Netherlands, EPP/CD
BERENYI Jozsef, Slovakia, EPP/CD
CHERNYSHENKO Igor, Russian Federation, EDG
DUESUND Ase Gunhild Woie, Norway, EPP/CD
DURRIEU Josette, France, SOC
EORSI Matyas, Hungary, ALDE
FREIRE ANTUNES Jose, Portugal, EPP/CD
FRUNDA Gyorgy, Romania, EPP/CD
GROSS Andreas, Switzerland, SOC
HOOPER Gloria, United Kingdom, EDG
HORSTER Joachim, Germany, EPP/CD
HURSKAINEN Sinikka, Finland, SOC
JURGENS Erik, Netherlands, SOC
KEAVENEY Cecilia, Ireland, ALDE
LAUKKANEN Markku, Finland, ALDE
LEUTHEUSSER-SCHNARRENBERGER Sabine, Germany, ALDE
LEYDEN Terry, Ireland, ALDE
MELO Maria Manuela, Portugal, SOC
MORSELLI Stefano, Italy, EDG
MUTTONEN Christine, Austria, SOC
NACHBAR Philippe, France, EPP/CD
PAPADOPOULOS Antigoni, Cyprus, ALDE
1 SOC: Socialist Group
EPP/CD: Group of the European People’s Party
ALDE: Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe
EDG: European Democratic Group
UEL: Group of the Unified European Left
NR: not registered in a group
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
