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ANKARA: 'Returning Minorities' Property An Economic Revolution'

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  • ANKARA: 'Returning Minorities' Property An Economic Revolution'

    'RETURNING MINORITIES' PROPERTY AN ECONOMIC REVOLUTION'

    Today's Zaman
    Aug 29, 2011
    Turkey

    A former official from the Privatization Administration (OÄ°B) has said
    a government decision to return all confiscated immovable property
    belonging to minority foundations is a historic economic revolution
    that would guarantee the right to own property in a country that is
    aspiring to become one of the 10 largest economies worldwide by 2023,
    its centennial.

    Writing in the Sabah daily, former OÄ°B Vice President Suleyman YaÅ~_ar
    underlined that the expropriation of all the properties more than 40
    years ago was a huge blow to the country's economy. "It is a must to
    guarantee property rights for an economy to grow rapidly in a proper
    way," he wrote on Monday. "Now the AK Party's [Justice and Development
    Party] decree will have its place as a revolution in the history of
    [Turkey's] economy," he added.

    The decree relating to the AK Party government's decision was
    published in the Official Gazette on Saturday and thereby went into
    force. Accordingly, minority foundations will be able to reclaim
    real property that they had declared back in 1936. All real property,
    cemeteries and fountains will be returned to their rightful holders.

    Immoveable property currently belonging to third persons will also
    be paid for. Minority foundations will have to apply to the Turkish
    authorities within 12 months to reclaim what belonged to them
    decades ago.

    "This is a first in the history of the Turkish Republic and a very
    significant move," said Kezban Hatemi, an attorney specializing in
    minority rights, discussing the decision earlier with Today's Zaman.

    "This is the restoration of a right. This move is a requirement of
    the Treaty of Lausanne and one that makes our non-Muslim citizens
    feel like equal citizens in Turkey," she also said on Sunday.

    The confiscation of the minority foundations' properties dates back
    to the early days of the Republic of Turkey when it was governed by a
    single-party, non-democratic regime. The 1936 Law on Foundations, known
    as the 1936 Declaration, ordered all foundations to submit a list of
    their immovable properties. And because there was no regulation issued
    after the fall of the Ottoman Empire that allows those foundations
    to own property, the General Directorate of Foundations expropriated
    all the immovable property acquired after 1936.

    Turkey's mostly Muslim population of 73 million includes nearly 65,000
    Armenian Orthodox Christians, 23,000 Jews and fewer than 2,500 Greek
    Orthodox Christians.

    ARABAÅ~^LIK 'Predictability of law necessitates rating upgrade'

    For YaÅ~_ar, the biggest contribution of the government's move to
    the Turkish economy is that it will make this a country where there
    is a rule of law that creates predictability for foreign investors
    who want to take advantage of Turkey's rapid economic growth. "This
    is also a decision that requires an immediate upgrade of Turkey's
    credit rating," YaÅ~_ar says.

    All three major credit rating agencies place Turkey in the
    non-investment cluster, which is also referred to as junk status, but
    with strong prospects for rating upgrades in the near future. Moody's
    rates Turkish credit Ba2, two notches below investment grade, with a
    positive outlook. Standard & Poor's rates the country an equivalent BB,
    also with a positive outlook, and Fitch Ratings ranks Turkey as BB+,
    just one notch below its investment grade.

    Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's AK Party has been in power
    since late 2002 and, having won the June 12 elections, will remain
    in office for another four years. The past eight years under the AK
    Party have brought decreases in Turkey's inflation, budget deficit
    and unemployment, along with improvements in economic growth. Turkey's
    current account deficit (CAD), on the other hand, spiked to 8 percent
    of its gross domestic product (GDP) because Turkish industries
    failed to reduce their dependence on foreign intermediate goods,
    and rising oil and natural gas prices caused the country's energy
    bill to skyrocket.

    Some say this deficit is the reason rating agencies have not upgraded
    Turkey's sovereign rating to investment grade despite its achievements
    over the past eight years. Others, including YaÅ~_ar, believe those
    agencies' decisions are based on politics and that their technical
    analyses are biased.

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