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27.05.2010

ARMENIAN COMMUNITY IN ISTANBUL IN THE CONTEXT OF ARMENIAN-TURKISH RELATIONS

   

Ruben Melkonyan

001 (original)The Armenian community in Istanbul, which faces various problems today, plays a definite role in the Armenian-Turkish relations. The interest of the community in the normalization of the relations between Armenia and Turkey is natural but it is also obvious that Turkish authorities try to use the Armenians living in Turkey for their political purposes and especially when some unfavourable for Turkey processes are taking plays within the frameworks of the Armenian-Turkish relations or in the course of the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide. The artificial involvement of the Armenian community in the aforementioned issues has obvious tendencies and one may say that Turkish authorities consider it as an element of their arsenal. Let us remember that at different stages of the activation of the process of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide not only temporal representatives but also high-ranking spiritual figures from the community made statements. It is worth remembering the visit of the Patriarch Mesrop Mutafian to the US which purpose was to avert the discussion of the Genocide issue in the Congress. The excessive involvement of the Patriarch of Istanbul in the politics not only contradicts to the nature of the church but it also considerably affects the authority of the Patriarch and patriarchate. By obliging the representatives of the Armenian community to make statements against the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide Turkish authorities reach two goals simultaneously: firstly, they try to show in a very simple way that the Armenians in Turkey are against the international recognition of the Genocide and secondly, they try to drive a wedge between different parts of the Armeniancy.

It is known that the Patriarch is supposed to be de-facto the leader of the Armenian community and our present Patriarch Mesrop Mutafian is incurably ill and in the course of the heated Armenian-Turkish developments Turkish authorities in fact lost one of the elements of their old arsenal. As an alternative under the situation concerned Turkish authorities tried to disseminate the statements they wanted through the representative of the Armenian community Petros Shirinoglu. Let us mention that there are foundations in Armenian community in Istanbul which dispose different property and which have board of trustees and chairmen. Petros Shirinoglu is the chairman of the board of trustees of Surb Prkich Hospital and is supposed to be one of the outstanding representatives of the “oligarchy” of the community. Recently he has met with the prime-minister of Turkey Erdogan and it is remarkable that Turkish media presented him as the leader of the Armenian community. It should be stated that Armenian community in Turkey has no leader, there is no such legal status and the absence of the temporal governing body caused disagreements in the community which have lasted for decades. De-facto the patriarch is considered to be the leader of the community but this contradicts to the postulate of the laicism spread in Turkey according to which the spiritual figure cannot deal with the temporal affairs. A part of the community (including Hrant Dink) demanded to establish the governing body for the community which won the approval of neither authorities nor mostly conservative part of the community. It is worth mentioning that till the 1960 coup the community in Istanbul had also had the temporal governing council which was abolished.

In Turkish press the official information was dispersed that the prime-minister will receive “the leader of the Armenian community Petros Shirinoglu”. This circumstance is remarkable by itself, but the most interesting is that this meeting took place at time when the statements of the Turkish prime-minister Erdogan that he was going to deport 100 thousand Armenians from the RA allegedly living in Turkey were actively discussed in the international press. As it was forecast, after the meeting with prime-minister Shirinoglu made some statements which at once found their place in Turkish and international press. His statements applied Armenian-Turkish negotiations, international recognition of the Genocide, Armenian community in Istanbul. Thus Turkish authorities wanted to send a “message” to the whole world about the “happy condition” of the Armenians in Istanbul. It would be naïve to believe that the time was chosen by chance and one can state that the Turkish part trying to correct the statements by Erdogan aspired to adjust them and used in that issue the representatives of the community in Istanbul. From Shirinoglu’s statements the followings were spread in Turkish press: “As a community we have no serious problems. Armenians feel safe in Turkey. Have you ever heard any discontent connected with the Armenians in Turkey? Have you ever heard any complaint from the Armenian living in Turkey? No. You have never heard, because there are no complaints. Let the Armenians form the Diaspora come and see Armenian foundations in Turkey, property, schools, their life and only after that form an opinion”. Shirinoglu also assumed the responsibility for obviously wrong number of the Armenians from the RA illegally living in Turkey (100 thousand), which was even disclaimed by the president Abdulla Gul. Speaking about this Shirinoglu mentioned: “There are not 100 thousand but 20 thousand RA citizens living in Turkey. The distinguished prime-minister trusting us and believing our words called the number of 100 thousand. We apologize for providing him wrong information”. This explanation is simply far from logic because it is hard to imagine that the prime-minister of the country with the population of more than 70 million makes an important statement based upon data provided by the private individuals. Speaking about the international recognition of the Genocide Shirinoglu once and again repeated the official Turkish versions: “Armenia is our neigbour country and due to the fact that I have an Armenian decent of course I am connected with it. But for me the interests of Turkey are priority. As the prime-minister says the history should be left to the historians. Of course there were losses both from the Armenian side and from the Turkish side. I believe it should not be qualified as genocide. Two sincere friends fall out with each other. This happens”.

But, however, there is something positive against the generally negative background caused by Shirinoglu’s statements: immediately the process, which we believe deserves special attention, was initiated and continually gained in scope. Process initiated by the Turkish authorities caused counteraction in some circles of the Armenian community. A group of the members of the community made a statement which particularly read: “It is lie that Armenians feel safe in Turkey; Armenians are discriminated in that country, get racist treatment; they are used as a mean for bargains and marked anti-Armenian policy within the considerable part of the society continues”. The authors of the statement mentioned they did not live in Turkey presented by Shirinoglu and at the same day they initiated the drive for signatures against Shirinoglu and his statements. We are glad to mention that in several days great many signatures were collected and that process is still going on. Those who signed clearly mentioned that Shirinoglu had no right to speak on behalf of the community because he was not the leader of the community and besides the issue of the Genocide could not be presented as a “fall out of two brothers” and thus soften it. Especially remarkable are the ideas of the representative of the Armenian community Hovsep Tokat that it is the responsibility of the Armenians in Turkey to represent to the Turkish people the facts and persuade it to accept them and not to conceal the realities. The calls for the unity can also be noticed in the statements of the Armenians of Istanbul.

This desired counteraction allows speaking about the tendencies of the recovery of the Armenian community in Istanbul. It should also be mentioned that as a result of the Turkish policy carried out for decades the frightened Armenian community was formed and it would be unfair to blame them. Though it can be mentioned that the scenario elaborated by Turkish authorities on this issue have not been implemented the way they wanted and Shirinoglu’s “performance” brought to the negative result.

As for the threatening of Erdogan to deport the Armenians from the RA illegally living in Turkey, it should be mentioned that this is not a new element in Turkish arsenal. Let us remember that in the mid 90s such statements had been made by the then prime-minister Tansu Ciller, especially at times when the issue of the recognition of the Armenian Genocide had been sharpening. But Erdogan’s threatening should not be fully ignored and it is not excluded that Turkish authorities may choose the deportation of the Armenians from the RA illegally living in Turkey as a leverage to impose the pressure, especially when such a precedent had already happened in recent history. According to the treaty signed in 1930 by Turkey and Greece, the rights of the citizens of two countries for residence, trade and acquisition of the property were vested. At that time there were thousands of people in Turkey who were the citizens of Greece and who were born and grew up in Turkey. In 1964 when the Turkish-Greek relations deteriorated because of the Cyprus issue, Turkish government unilaterally declared the 1930 treaty invalid and started the deportation of the Greece citizens, who were mostly the Greeks living in Istanbul. At that time Turkish authorities tried to use that circumstance as method of blackmail and a way to force Greek party make concessions. It is remarkable that the deportation spread not only to the citizens of Greece but also to the Greeks who were the citizens of Turkey because over the decades the families had been formed where, for example, wife was a citizen of Greece and husband was a citizen of Turkey. And together with about 12.000 deported Greeks (citizens of Greece) thousands of Greeks who were citizens of Turkey were deported. In special literature those Greeks were called “the last exiles of Istanbul”, and this is also a part of the Turkish policy.

Summarizing, let us mention that the threatening statements of Erdogan once again come to prove that Turkey is far from the European values. On the other hand those statements compel us to be more vigilant.


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