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Turkey Crafts Law To Return Property Confiscated From Religious Mino

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  • Turkey Crafts Law To Return Property Confiscated From Religious Mino

    TURKEY CRAFTS LAW TO RETURN PROPERTY CONFISCATED FROM RELIGIOUS MINORITIES
    By Selcan Hacaoglu, Associated Press Writer

    The Associated Press
    February 7, 2008 Thursday 5:13 PM GMT
    Ankara Turkey

    Turkey's parliament is considering a law that would allow properties
    confiscated by the state to be returned to Christian and Jewish
    minority foundations.

    The reform appears designed to meet conditions set by the European
    Union for Turkey's membership in the bloc, but critics say the
    measure would not go far enough. Parliament is expected to vote as
    soon as next week on returning property to religious minorities,
    and the ruling party of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has the
    majority required to approve the law.

    Parliament first approved it in November 2006. But the president
    at the time, Ahmet Necdet Sezer, was a secularist who was often at
    odds with Erdogan's Islamic-rooted government, and he vetoed it. The
    country's population of 70 million, mostly Muslim, includes 65,000
    Armenian Orthodox Christians, 23,000 Jews, and fewer than 2,500 Greek
    Orthodox Christians.

    The law would allow foundations to recover confiscated properties,
    but it was not clear if they would be allowed to reclaim property that
    has been sold or whether they would be compensated for the loss of
    such properties. President Abdullah Gul, a close associate of Erdogan,
    is expected to approve the measure.

    The Istanbul-based Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation, an
    independent research center known as TESEV, predicted that Turkey would
    face more criticism from Europe if the law "does not ensure the return
    or indemnification of the seized assets of non-Muslim foundations."

    Religious minorities have often complained of discrimination in Turkey,
    which has a history of conflict with Greece, which is predominantly
    Christian, and with Armenians, another mostly Christian group. Many
    Armenians accuse Turkish authorities of trying to exterminate them
    early in the last century, but Turkey says mass killings at that
    time were the result of the chaos of war, rather than a systematic
    campaign of genocide.

    The law allows foundations to reclaim properties, including churches,
    school buildings and orphanages, that are registered under the names of
    saints. The law does not address some types of confiscated properties,
    such as cemeteries or minority school properties.

    The proposed bill said authorities shall consider "the international
    principle of reciprocity" in implementing it, in an apparent reference
    to Turkish demands that similar measures are implemented in Greece
    to expand rights of the ethnic Turkish minority there.

    Luiz Bakar, the spokeswoman for the Armenian Patriarchate, an
    Orthodox Christian group based in Istanbul, expressed concern over
    uncertainities about how the law would be implemented.

    "We are ethnic Armenians, but we are Turkish citizens, we are not
    foreigners. So, applying the principle of reciprocity to us would
    amount to discrimination," Bakar said.

    "The inclusion of this provision in the draft law shows that the
    state is still not regarding non-Muslim citizens as equal citizens,"
    the TESEV report said.

    Turkey seized some properties owned by minority foundations in 1974
    around the time of a Turkish invasion of the island of Cyprus that
    followed a coup attempt by supporters of union with Greece.
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