“The land of the Mor Gabriel Monastery will return to the monastery’s foundation,” Erdoğan promised today, while declaring a wide range of reforms on democracy.
“In fact, our government has shown a great sensitivity in this issue throughout the [Turkish] Republic’s history and has made serious efforts in return for such rights. We have taken sincere steps with regulations we made about the removal of such injustices in 2003, 2008 and 2011 and we received concrete results. We have returned more than 250 [properties], costing more around 2.5 billion Turkish Liras to the original owners,” said Erdoğan. Erdoğan also said that they would continue to return the properties of minorities without occasioning the suffering of others.
Mor Gabriel is a 1,700-year-old monastery located in Mardin’s Midyat district. In 2008, the Forestry Ministry, the Land Registry Office and the villages of Yayvantepe, Çandarlı and Eğlence sued the monastery for allegedly occupying their fields. The court recognized the monastery as an “occupier,” after which the case was brought to the ECHR.
- The package, announced by Erdoğan today, however, lacked any development about the reopening of the Halki Greek Orthodox seminary on Istanbul’s Heyebeliada Island, which has been an ongoing point of debate for years.
The reopening of the school has been postponed due to a lack of clarity over its status, as well as the principle of reciprocity with Greece, which has refused to allow Turkish minorities to elect their own religious officials.
- On Sept. 12, Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç said that they would take the necessary steps for the reopening of the Halki Seminary[1] “when certain local and international conditions are constituted.” He also gave signals of solving the Mor Gabriel Monastery issue in the same speech. “We have to apply the law on the matter but an alternative formula could resolve the problem [of Mor Gabriel monastery],” Arınç said.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/syriacs-to-regain-mor-gabriels-land-no-move-on-halki-seminary-in-democratization-package.aspx?pageID=238&nID=55408&NewsCatID=339
30/9/13
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[1]Halki Seminary to undergo status change to allow for reopening
Proper conditions needed for Halki reopening, says Turkish Deputy PM...
Δεν θα επαναλειτουργήσει άμεσα η Θεολογική Σχολή της Χάλκης.
Turkey's EU minister wishes reopening of Greek theological school...
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Τούρκος υπουργός: Εξετάζουμε την επαναλειτουργία της Σχολής της Χάλκης
Απάντηση Εκπροσώπου ΥΠΕΞ σε ερωτήσεις σχετικά με δηλώσεις Αντιπροέδρου κυβέρνησης Τουρκίας περί αμοιβαιότητας για επαναλειτουργία Θεολογικής Σχολής Χάλκης
Σχέδιο ψηφίσματος στην αμερικανική Βουλή για άμεσο άνοιγμα της Σχολής της Χάλκης
Κωνσταντινούπολη : Να ανοίξει τη Θεολογική Σχολή της Χάλκης κάλεσε την Τουρκία ο Τζον Κέρι
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EU welcomes package, will follow implementation...
ReplyDeleteThe European Union said it welcomed the democratization package announced by the Turkish government and declared that it would feature in the forthcoming progress report to be announced in mid-October.
“We have listened carefully to the announcement of Prime Minister [Recep Tayyip] Erdoğan this morning and welcome his reference to the guiding role of the EU acquis communautaire in Turkey’s reforms. We are still waiting for the text to be released and will then examine the package in detail,” the commission said in a written statement today.
“The announced measures hold out the prospect of progress on a range of important issues, including use of languages other than Turkish in a number of instances and minority rights such as the case of the Mor Gabriel Monastery. The measures also commit Turkey to addressing changes to the current high thresholds for representation in Parliament and to open up state financing of political parties, which should increase pluralism. We also hope that the announcement of a law on data protection will facilitate EU-Turkey cooperation in different areas,” it added.
The European Commission said it was looking forward to progress on these matters, including the full engagement of the opposition parties. “The Commission will closely follow the translation of the proposals in concrete actions and follow up its implementation,” read the statement.
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/eu-welcomes-package-will-follow-implementation.aspx?pageID=238&nID=55440&NewsCatID=351
30/9/13
Return of Mor Gabriel Monastery lands to Syriacs officially approved...
ReplyDeleteThe assembly of foundations, the highest decision-making body of the general directorate for foundations, today decided to return the lands of the historic Mor Gabriel Monastery to the Syriac community in Turkey. The details of the decision have yet to be made public.
Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç had earlier said that 12 plots belonging to the Mor Gabriel Foundation would be returned to the community.
Mor Gabriel is a 1,700-year-old historic monastery located in the southeastern province of Mardin’s Midyat district. In 2008, the Forestry Ministry, the Land Registry Cadaster Office and the villages of Yayvantepe, Çandarlı and Eğlence sued the monastery for allegedly “occupying” their fields.
The lawsuit was finalized last year, recognizing the monastery as an “occupier,” but the case was then taken to the European Court of Human Rights.
While declaring a the “democratization package” last week, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan promised that, “The land of the Mor Gabriel Monastery will return to the monastery’s foundation.”
http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/return-of-mor-gabriel-monastery-lands-to-syriacs-officially-approved.aspx?pageID=238&nID=55858&NewsCatID=339
7/10/13
Turkey’s non-Muslim minorities disappointed by ‘reciprocity for rights’...
ReplyDeleteGovernment’s insistence on reciprocal steps from Greece to improve religious rights for its Turkish minority is subject to criticism as pundits and members of the non-Muslim minorities lament that non-Muslim citizens of Turkey are being deprived of their rights.
“The principle of reciprocity cannot be applied in the field of human rights,” said Orhan Kemal Cengiz, a human rights lawyer. “It is understandable to work for improving rights of Turks in Greece, yet it is unacceptable to deprive your own citizens of their rights.”
Members of non-Muslim minorities have expressed disappointment over lack of concrete steps to improve their rights in a recent democratization package and official statements linking such steps for improvements on the rights for the Turkish minority in Greece.
“Will the minorities of this country be governed in accordance with [the conditions provided for Turks in] another country?” Hayko Bağdat, a columnist in Taraf daily said. “Are we prisoners here?” he asked rebelliously.
“But so much goodwill [on our part] is enough. They [Greece] haven’t even allowed us to build two mosques [in Athens],” Erdoğan said at a rally in Ceyhan town of Adana province on Sunday, after enumerating what the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) has so far done for the minorities to get back what is their due in Turkey.
During the time the AK Party has been in power, Turkey has returned property worth $2.5 billion to Greeks, Armenians and Jews living in Turkey. “In our civilization, it’s the duty of the state to protect the rights of Muslims and non-Muslims alike,” Erdoğan said in his speech. In the latest step, the government is about to return land formerly owned by Mor Gabriel Monastery of Turkey’s Syriacs to the foundation of the monastery, a step that is part of the latest democratization package the prime minister announced at the end of September.
The principle of reciprocity in relation to the rights and privileges of minorities in Turkey and Greece was introduced by the Treaty of Lausanne, of which the two countries are among the signatories. The treaty was signed in 1924 after Turkey came out victorious in its War of Independence following World War I, driving the Greek army out of Turkish soil in 1922.
According to Cengiz, making steps on non-Muslim rights conditional on reciprocal steps in Greece means that the government is displaying “neo-nationalist and Kemalist reflexes” on the issue.
Members of minority groups in Turkey are disturbed by Erdoğan’s remarks because they feel themselves like “captives” who are perceived as citizens of another state. “I find this humiliating and take it as an insult,” Bağdat told Today’s Zaman. “I couldn’t believe it,” Laki Vingas, a minority representative who serves in the Directorate of Foundations of the Prime Ministry, commented over his Twitter account about Erdoğan’s remarks that indicated that Turkey is at the end of its goodwill and that it would no longer be willing to take unilateral steps as regards minority rights.
In the latest democratization package the government announced at the end of September, there was no article as regards the reopening of the theological school (Halki Seminary) in İstanbul’s Heybeliada. Leading government officials such as Bülent Arınç, the deputy prime minister, had also previously implied that the government was waiting, before making a move regarding the seminary, for Greece to take some positive steps towards the muslim minority in Western Thrace, restituting them rights bestowed by the Lausanne Treaty. Vingas, who confirmed his concern over the telephone to Today’s Zaman, said in his Twitter account that minorities in Turkey are always destined to be politically in debt as Turkey would seek reciprocity by Greece......http://www.todayszaman.com//news-328390-turkeys-non-muslim-minorities-disappointed-by-reciprocity-for-rights.html
8/10/13
Erdogan says Turkey can open the historic theological school if Greece takes steps to better the [Muslim community's] religious affairs in Western Thrace...
ReplyDeleteANKARA (AA) - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has called for simultaneous steps on the part of Turkey and Greece to both open the Halki seminary and to improve religious affairs of the [Muslim community] in Western Thrace.
Erdogan said on Tuesday the Turkish government would open the theological school if Greece took steps to allow the Muslim community in Western Thrace to elect its own religious leaders.
"We can open the Halki seminary in an instant," Erdogan told his AK Party's caucus. "When we reinstate a right, we expect our right to be returned."
The Halki seminary has remained closed for educational purposes since 1971, when the Turkish government enforced a ban on private higher education institutions.....http://www.aa.com.tr/en/headline/237816--turkish-pm-hints-at-opening-halki-seminary
8/10/13