WHAT IS TURKEY RETURNING TO ARMENIANS?
Raffi Bedrosyan
Armenian Weekly
Wed, Aug 31 2011
The Turkish government recently announced that real estate assets
confiscated by the State, which once belonged to Armenian, Greek,
and Jewish charitable foundations, would be returned to the rightful
owners, and that the government would pay compensation for any
confiscated property that has since been sold to third parties. This
is definitely a long overdue positive step in the right direction by
the Turkish government, when compared with decades long injustice and
discrimination of the past Turkish governments against its non-Muslim
citizens. While this decree was hailed by the EU, Turkish media as
well as the minority charitable foundations in Turkey, it was met by
the Armenian Diaspora as an insufficient gesture at best, a cynical
political trick at worst. Perhaps the following facts can help put
the issue in context.
Selamet Han In 1936, the Turkish government required the non-Muslim
minority charitable foundations to submit a list of all their real
estate assets to the state, which they did. In 1974, during the height
of the Cyprus crisis and with inflamed hatred toward the Greeks, the
Turkish government installed by the 1971 coup d’etat decreed that
any assets not shown on the 1936 lists, that is, properties deeded
to the charitable foundations after 1936, are illegally obtained and
therefore, must be seized by the Turkish state. Some 1,410 properties
willed or gifted to the non-Muslim charitable organizations from 1936
to 1974, were confiscated by the State, thus suddenly depriving the
foundations from their beneficial uses and revenues. These assets
included apartment, school and office buildings, houses, shops and
vacant land, mostly in or near Istanbul, where most of the remaining
non-Muslim minority citizens in Turkey lived. The present government
decree pledges to return 162 of the 1,410 assets confiscated in 1974.
Over the past several years, the charitable foundations had tried
through Turkish legal channels to get back these assets but to no
avail. They had recently applied to the European Court of Human Rights,
which had already ruled against the Turkish state on a number of cases.
Below is a partial list of the Armenian charitable foundation assets
to be returned by the government:
1. Gedikpasha Armenian Protestant primary school – the building is
already demolished, at present used as a park
2. Gedikpasha Armenian Protestant Church – one apartment building
in Kumkapi, a restaurant, a playground
3. Surp Harutyun Armenian Church – several flats in Beyoglu
4. Ferikoy Surp Vartanants Church – an apartment building and a
vacant lot in Sisli
5. Kurucheshme Surp Khatch Yerevman Church – one building in
Arnavutkoy
6. Kumkapi Surp Harutyun School – a store in Kumkapi and a store
in Kadikoy
7. Kumkapi Mayr Asdvadzadzin Church – a flat in Eminonu
8. Yenikoy Surp Asdvadzadzin Church – a vacant lot in Istinye
9. Bomonti Mkhitaryan Armenian Catholic School – school buildings,
two shops and a flat in Sisli
10. Yedikule Surp Prgitch (Holy Saviour) Armenian Hospital – a total of
19 properties, including one building lot, a house and four shared lots
in Sariyer, a residential building in Moda, 2 residential buildings
in Sisli, one flat in Beyoglu, one store in Kapalicarsi Covered
Bazaar, a house in Uskudar, one apartment building, one flat and a
warehouse in Kurtulus, a four storey hotel in Taksim, a retail and
office commercial building in Beyoglu, a flat in Chamlica, a 47,500
sq. m. vacant lot in Beykoz, and a 44,000 sq. m. land adjacent to
the Hospital, formerly the gardens of the Hospital, presently used
as Zeytinburnu Soccer Stadium, a sports building, a parking lot and
a tea garden, and last but not least, the valuable office building
called Selamet Han in Eminonu, Istanbul.
It is noteworthy to emphasize the significance of the Selamet Han
office building, which was donated in 1953 by well known businessman
and oil magnate Caloust Gulbenkian. The impressive six storey art
nouveau style building was built in early 20. century by Armenian
architect Hovsep Aznavour, builder of many of the Istanbul landmarks
in the Pera/Beyoglu district. The Selamet Han building, confiscated
by the state in 1974, fell into disrepair and is now in a dilapidated
condition. The Surp Prgitch Foundation has announced that as soon as
the building is given back, it intends to restore it and put into
use as a boutique hotel, to generate much needed revenues for the
hospital operations.
The recent government decree at last and at least partially addresses
the injustices of the 1974 confiscations, by pledging to return about
ten percent of the 1,410 properties, mostly in Istanbul. However,
there is a massive list of properties and assets belonging to the
approximately thousands of Armenian churches, monasteries and schools
in Anatolia, lost after 1915. One example to illustrate the enormity
of this issue is the case of the Surp Giragos Armenian Church in
Diyarbakir, which by itself had owned more than 200 properties in
central Diyarbakir prior to 1915. Another interesting example is
the Sanasaryan High School in Erzurum. This school, which provided
education of such high caliber that it even surpassed the Istanbul
Armenian schools in the late 19. century, was closed down in 1915. It
is still a little known fact in Turkey that Mustafa Kemal Ataturk,
when drumming up support and organizing the resistance to the Allied
occupation of Anatolia, convened the famous Erzurum Congress in this
Armenian school in July-August 1919. The Sanasaryan School Foundation,
had built and owned one of the largest office buildings in Istanbul
in the late 19th Century, in order to support the Sanasaryan School
in Erzurum. It is also a little known fact that the famous Sanasaryan
Han Office Building in Istanbul was seized first by the Ottoman and
then the Turkish Republic governments and converted into the General
Security and Police Headquarters of Istanbul. This building became
notorious for the imprisonment, torture and murder of hundreds of
intelligentsia during the military government regimes in the 1970’s
and 1980’s.
One last glaring example involves the lands belonging to the Surp Agop
Armenian Catholic Cemetery, which were confiscated in the 1930s by
the Istanbul municipal government. These lands were deeded in the 16.
Century by the Ottoman Emperor Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent to the
Armenian people for cemetery uses, as a reward to his personal cook
Manuk Karaseferyan of Van, who saved the Sultan from a poisoning
plot against him by the Germans and Hungarians after the campaign
to take Budapest. The Armenian cemetery was in use for nearly four
centuries from 1560s to 1930s. As these vast lands lie adjacent to
the most popular road in the centre of the city, they were deemed
most valuable by the Istanbul government and expropriated from the
Armenian Surp Agop Foundation without any compensation, despite years
of legal struggles. At present, these lands are occupied by the State
Radio and Television Headquarters, The Turkish Armed Forces Istanbul
Headquarters, the Military Museum, many fashionable hotels such as
Hilton, Regency Hyatt, Divan, several apartment and office buildings,
as well as the expansive Taksim Park, which has walkways made from
marble of the Armenian tombstones.
The decree by the present government may seem insufficient or
insignificant, but everything is relative, and this is an enormous
first step of a long journey in the right direction when compared
with past Turkish government policies. This journey requires mutual
empathy, cooperation, encouragement and, above all, the uncovering
of all hidden historic facts on the path to the creation of a common
body of knowledge.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.armenianweekly.com/2011/08/31/property-return/