TURKISH AUTHORITIES MUST ELIMINATE THE MISUNDERSTANDING

[MosJan]

TURKISH AUTHORITIES MUST ELIMINATE THE “MISUNDERSTANDING”

 

There were reports in both Turkish and Armenian media that the Armenia Patriarch of Turkey Archbishop Mesrob Mutafian had sent a letter to Turkish interior minister demanding his intervention to invalidate a decision which said that the new passports of Armenians in Turkey must carry a note “other Christian’ in a column indicating their religious belonging.

 

Mutafian’s letter said that the old passports of Turkish Armenians carried the note “Christian”. He said the change would be discriminative against Armenians adding that the decision had caused their deep concern. Patriarch’s letter was followed by another one from his advisor with warnings that they would seek invalidation of the decision in the European Human Rights Court if it was not cancelled.

 

A similar concern was expressed by the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, printed in Istanbul. The weekly asked explanations from official Ankara. Head of passport department was quoted by Agos as saying that the decision was a misunderstanding, adding that it does not cover those Christian denominations which are recognized as Turkey’s long-time Christian groups, Greeks and Armenians. But there have not been reports that the “misunderstanding” was eliminated and this may indicate that it was done intentionally, stemming from Turkish authorities’ desire to restrict the rights of the Armenian minority, but this runs counter to the 1923 Lozanne treaty, signed by Turkey on the one hand and France, Great Britain, Italy, Greece, Romania, Yugoslavia and Japan on the other hand, which recognized the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Turkey and which granted Armenians, Greeks and Jews in Turkey the status of national minorities. In other words, this status discerned Armenians and Greeks from other Christian denominations of Bulgarians, Assyrians and Levantines, who were classified as “other Christians.”

 

Now classifying Armenians as “other Christians’ would mean equating them with religious group void of the “national minority” status and making them minority among other Christians in a country in which 90 percent of population are Muslims.

 

By Hakob Chakria

[Lev7]

and Turkey wants to join the EU, unbelievable.