Armenians in Turkey Today- Dr. Tessa Hofmann

[Joseph]

The author

Dr. Phil. Tessa Hofmann is a member of the Eastern Europe Institute of the Free University of Berlin and author or
editor of ten books on Armenian history and culture. She is also a volunteer human rights activist and defender of
minority rights since 1979 and has published or lectured on many occasions on the situation of the Armenian
minority of Turkey. In this capacity, she is also an expert for German federal authorities and administrative courts
dealing with asylum applications of Turkish citizens of Armenian ethnic background. The Armenian Benevolent
Foundation, New York, gave her the first Garbis Papazian award in 1988 in recognition of her scholarly and
humanitarian activities and the Hrachia Ajarian University of Yerevan awarded her the academic title of Professor.

The Forum of Armenian Associations in Europe

The Forum of Armenian Associations in Europe was established in 1998 to assemble and facilitate co-operation
between Armenian organizations in the European Diaspora. It now counts member organizations in 18 European
countries and growing. The Forum is pluralistic and deals with all issues of interest to its member organizations,
including international relations, human rights issues, economic co-operation and cultural matters.

The EU Office for the Armenian Associations of Europe assists Armenians associations in working with the
European institutions; it helps provide information of the highest standard to the European institutions on
Armenians issues and disseminates information on EU policies that are relevant to Armenians.

Acknowledgements

The FAAE wishes to express its heartfelt thanks to the author and to all those who contributed to this report with
information, financial contributions and practical assistance. Questions or comments on the text should be
addressed to the EU office of the FAAE.



Some changes, furthermore, are now being introduced
for the worse: the education ministry has recently
changed the school curriculum to reinforce its anti-
Armenian bias.


Recommendations

The following demands and recommendations stem
from the available evidence.

1. The authorities must protect the members of
the Armenian community in Turkey as well as
their institutions against attacks and threats;
they must also investigate and prosecute
those responsible for such offences more
consistently than in the past.

2. The discrimination and mistreatment of
servicemen belonging to non-Muslim
minorities must be stopped, and a control body
as well as a complaint procedure must be
created for that purpose in the army.

3. The systematic financial pilferage of religious
foundations must be put an end to. In this
respect, a series of laws governing the
situation of minorities must be revised, and all
the properties of foundations confiscated
under the previous law must be returned to
their owners.

4. Discriminatory and offensive reporting on
minorities in general and on Armenians in
particular must be stopped. This also applies
to the Turkish media, who must exercise self-
control and must recognize their responsibility
for the creation and hardening of prejudices
against minorities. Appropriate measures must
also be taken so that Turkish citizens
commenting on the Armenian genocide as a
historical fact are protected from attacks in the
Turkish media.

5. The disturbing anti-Armenians atmosphere,
based on ignorance and prejudice, which
obviously prevails in broad sections of society,
prejudice. This must also involve a revision of
schoolbooks, particularly in the field of history.

6. Turkish politicians and high-level
representatives of the authorities must also
recognize their own responsibility for the
protection of minorities and be called to
answer for public statements hostile to
minorities.

7. Those Armenians still remaining in Turkey as
well as the members of others non-Muslim
minorities should no longer have to feel
threatened. Among the confidence-building
measures to be implemented, the Turkish
State must guarantee unrestricted access to
all levels of the civil service to members of
non-Muslim minorities. Members of minorities
must furthermore actively and forcefully be
encouraged to apply for positions in the civil
service, as they have de facto been excluded
from such opportunities for decades.

8. The practice of prosecuting those Turkish
citizens who publicly express the opinion in
words or in writing that the Armenian genocide
is a historical fact must be stopped
immediately. The European Community, in line
with previous European Parliament
resolutions, should for its part take appropriate
measures to encourage Turkish academics,
publishers and journalists to contribute to the
inter-ethnic reconciliation through a critical
reassessment of history.

9. The Turkish government is called upon to
comply with its obligation under numerous
international agreement and treaties to protect
and maintain Armenian cultural assets. In
particular, it should prevent any further
manipulation or destruction of Armenian
cultural monuments under the pretext of their
protection, of their restoration or of
archaeological research. It would be desirable
for that matter to set up international teams of
researchers and experts in the field of
conservation and restoration, in which experts
from Armenia should also take part.

[Joseph]

Part 2

Introduction

In 2003, the Republic of Turkey will celebrate its 80th
anniversary. This, along with the country’s wish to join
the European Union as a full member, offers an
occasion both to carry out a critical inventory and to
examine whether the Treaty of Lausanne of 1923
proved to be an instrument for the protection of the
collective and individual rights of “non-Muslim
minorities“ in Turkey.

The documentation that follows relies extensively on
published sources such as reports by non-
governmental and human rights organizations,
academic analyses as well as coverage by the
Armenian, Turkish and German press. These sources
have indeed been accepted as the basis of legal
evidence by the judicial authorities of the Federal
Republic of Germany.

This report concentrates on the situation of the
Armenian minority in Turkey within the last ten years.
However, it also deliberately includes earlier events.
Medium and long-term developments must be taken
into account to understand the problems of the
Armenian minority, as well as their ongoing and
recurrent character.

Historical Settlement Area

Until 1915, the area of historical settlement of the
Armenian people was the Armenian highland, defined
as a territory about 300,000-400,000 km2 situated
between the adjacent plateaus of Iran and Anatolia,
and between Northern Mesopotamia and the
Caucasus. This is where the ethno genesis of the
Armenian people took place around the middle of the
first millennium B.C. The economic, agricultural and
political centres of this region were the Van plains and
the Ararat valley. By contrast, the current settlement
area of Armenians is restricted to the Republic of
Armenia (29,740 km2) and Nagorno Karabakh (5,000
km2.)

Christianity as an integral
component of national identity

According to the traditions of the Armenian Church,
Christianity became a state religion as early as 301.
The Armenian Apostolic Church is thus the oldest state
church in the world since the disappearance of the
smaller, older Christian kingdoms of Northern
Mesopotamia. The Christian faith and national identity
merged at an early stage, but after the first big schism
of Christianity at the Council of Chalcedon (451 A.D.),
the Armenians found themselves siding with the other
pre-Chalcedonian churches such as the Syrian
Orthodox, Coptic and Ethiopian churches.
Christianisation has left a deep mark on Armenian
history and culture and Christianity is therefore an
integral component of Armenian identity.

Present numbers, social situation
and geographical distribution of
Armenians in Turkey

The national office for statistics of the Republic of
Turkey estimates that, out of a total number of 82,000
Armenian citizens in Turkey, eight to ten thousand live
abroad, predominantly in Germany, the Netherlands
and Belgium. Of the 72,000 who remain in the country,
only five percent live outside of Istanbul1. Even the
Annual Report on International Religious Freedom,
published by the U.S. Department of State for 2001,
estimates the number of members of the Armenian
Apostolic church in Turkey at only about 50,0002. In
the 1990’s, the number of Armenian Catholics
(Armenian Uniates) in Turkey shrank from about 5,000
to less than 2,000 (in 1999) 3; the number of Armenian
Protestants is estimated at 500. The Armenian
community in Turkey estimates its own numbers at
about 60,000 to 65,000. Strikingly, the official census
in Turkey shows virtually no increase of the Armenian
minority since 1935: the official record for 1935 gives a
figure of 57,000, compared to 58,000 for 19654.

Additionally, 12,451 citizens of the Republic of
Armenia currently live in Turkey according to Turkish
Interior Secretary data of 2002. A total of 82,249
citizens of the Republic of Armenia are thought to have
entered Turkey between 1997 and 20015.


1
See Voskeritchian, Taline: Drawing strength from the history and cultural legacy of their
beloved city. In: „AIM“ (Armenian International Magazine), December 1998, p. 38
2
Department of State: Annual Report on International Religious Freedom 2001. December
2001, p. 382. Internet source: http://www.state.gov/gdrl/rls/irf//2001/
3
See Avakian, Florence: Interview with Patriarch Mesrob II of Istanbul and Turkey ( PART
I) , In: Azg/Mirror-Spectator On-Line, 27.05.1999; Internet source

http://www.arzo.com/arzo2/MIRROR_SPECTATOR%2005_27_1999.htm

4
Committee for Monitoring Minority Rights: Minorities in Turkey. (Istanbul), 02.06.1996, P. 3
5
See „Agos“ (Internet edition of 17.07.2002). http://www.agos.com.tr/indexeng.html

[Joseph]

Part 3

Only 200 families still
lived in Diyarbekir in
the 1960s; ...in 1994,
Lussine was the last
Armenian inhabitant
of an area where
570,000 Armenians
had lived in 1914.
As the Armenian population of the Ottoman empire
was estimated before World War I and before the
genocide of 1915-16 at 2.5 to 3 million6, the
percentage of the total Christian population would
have amounted to one quarter of the total Ottoman
population. Today Armenians form the largest
Christian minority in an environment that is almost
exclusively Muslim. Among 67.8 million inhabitants in
the Republic of Turkey7, less than one percent are
Christians (foreigners included8); the number of all
Christians in Turkey is in fact probably only about 0.15
percent9.

All parishes outside of Istanbul have shrunk markedly
since 1964, and many disappeared towards the end of
the 20th century. Today, none of them still retains its
own priest. Only 200 families still lived in Diyarbekir in
the 1960s, home to the only Apostolic Armenian parish
in Anatolia at that time. In June 1985,
the Armenian Patriarch came across
as few as 35 Armenians there and in
1994 Scottish travel journalist William
Dalrymple met only Lussine (Lüsye
Baco), a distracted old Armenian
woman in the care of Kurds who had
forgotten her language when her
husband was killed. Lussine’s Kurdish
caretaker reported that the roof of the
dilapidated church collapsed under
the weight of the snow in the winter of
1993-94. Lussine was the last Armenian inhabitant of
an area where 570,000 Armenians had lived in 191410.
She was brought to Istanbul a few years ago by the
Armenian author M?g?rdiç Margosyan and died shortly
thereafter in the Armenian elderly home of Yedikule.
Now only an old Armenian by the name of Anto
(Andranik) lives in Diyarbekir and serves as caretaker
for the Armenian church.

There were five other priests11 with their own parishes
in Kayseri (which counted 20-30 Armenians including
surrounding villages and towns12), Antakya (or

6
Ibid.
7
U.S. Department of State, Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor : Country
Report on Human Rights Practices; Turkey 2001. March 4, 2002. p. 1
Internet source: http://www.state.gov/g//drl/rls/hrrpt/2001/eur/8358.htm
8
Duncker, Gerhard: Fremde Federn: Christen in der Türkei - wie Fische auf dem
Trockenen. „Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung“, 14.12.2001, p. 14. – The author is an
Protestant pastor in Istanbul.
9
Oehring, Otmar: Zur Lage der Menschenrechte in der Türkei - Laizismus =
Religionsfreiheit? „Missio“, 2001, No. 5.
10
Dalrymple, William: From the Holy Mountain: A Journey in the Shadow of Byzantium.
London, 1997. p. 81 f.
11
According to Patriarch Mesrob II. (1999). – see. Avakian, op. cit.
12
In 1937, two thousand Armenians are supposed ot have lived in Kayseris – a town of
about 70.000 inhabitants at that time.. – see. „Virtual Ani“, Internet source
Antiochia, 35 Armenians), Iskenderun, K?r?khan
(Hatay, only two Armenians in 200113) as well as in
Vak?f?i Köyü (Vak?f), the last Armenian village in
Turkey (150 inhabitants14). Those parishes catered to
the spiritual needs of small communities and of
individuals scattered over vast areas at the time. The
priest in Vak?f died a few months ago, leaving his
position vacant. On important holidays or on certain
special occasions, members of the Clergy are
dispatched from Istanbul in order to hold religious
services, to give the sacraments and to carry out other
services for the benefit of the remaining communities.

Although outside historic settlement areas, Istanbul is
not perceived as an Armenian Diaspora community:
“Istanbul is not a settlement of immigrants (Kaghut)
like Beirut. It is something unique, between the
Fatherland (Hairenik) and the Diaspora (Spyurk). We
are a community (Hamaynk)“,
explained Robert Haddeler, publisher
of the daily newspaper Marmara,
published since 1940, about the
special position of Istanbul for the
Armenians15. Armenians can look
back on a long story in Istanbul, which
started in the 6th century. 200,000-
250,000 Armenians lived in
Constantinople around the turn of the
20th century. The Kurtulu? quarter has
the largest Armenian population today,
but they previously inhabited traditionally “Christian”
quarters such as Ye?ilköy (San Stefano), Bak?rköy,
Kumkap?, Samatya, Alt?mermer-Yedikule, Kad?köy
(Chalcedony) as well as the Princes Islands (Papaz
Adalar?) where many Armenians from Istanbul spend
the summer months. As skilled workers, craftsmen and
independent entrepreneurs, they belong to the lower to
upper urban middle classes of Turkey. They are
scarcely represented in public service positions, due to
both open and covert discrimination: state officials
must be Muslim (cf. IV.1.).

Ethnologists estimate that, apart from Christian
Armenians, there are 30,000 to 40,000 Muslim ‘crypto-
Armenians’, living in Turkey who have adapted to the

http://www.virtualani.freeserve.co.uk/kayseri/kayseri.htm

13
Department of State, Annual Report, op. cit., p. 385.
14
Hermann, Rainer: Die Enteignungen in der Türkei dauern an; Kassationshof: Annahme
aller Vermögenswerte der NichtMuslime seit 1936 ist gesetzwidrig. „Frankfurter Allgemeine
Zeitung“, 20.12.2001, p. 12; there are only 135 inhbabitants according to the report of Radio
Free Europe/Radio. –see Naegele, Jolyon: Turkey: Village Survived The Century's First
Mass Ethnic Expulsion. Internet source:

http://www.rferl.org/nca/features/1999/05/F.RU.990527132152.html

15
quoted from: Voskeritchian, op. cit., p. 38

[Joseph]

Part 4

Kurdish or Turkish majority of the population. There
are also about 20,000 Hem?inli Muslims whose
homeland is between Trabzon (Trapesunt) and
Erzurum, though they are also disseminated further to
the northeast. Although some of their ancestors had
adopted Islam as early as the 16th century, the
Hem?inli were able to better preserve their Armenian
dialect than many Armenians in Istanbul. With the
exception of the Hem?inli, Armenian Muslims and
Crypto-Christians are scattered minorities. As such,
they are particularly exposed to humiliations and
ongoing persecutions on the part of fellow Muslims,
who doubt their religious loyalty and continue to
identify them with Christian Armenians.


I. In Ottoman times:
historical review and
background

Nine-tenths of the historic Armenian settlement zones
came under the domination of the Ottoman Turks after
about 200 years of devastating wars between the
Ottoman Empire and Iran (Peace Treaty of Diyarbekir,
1639). The regions of Kars and Ardahan were later
acquired by Russia after the Russo-Turkish war of
1877/8, only to be signed away to Turkey by the
former Soviet Union in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk of
1918.

The position of the Armenians as well as all remaining
non-Muslims (Christians and Jews) in the Ottoman
Empire was determined by Muslim legal principles.
Non-Muslims were socially and legally subordinate,
paid two types of tribute (dschisija and charadsch) as
well as additional and higher taxes and were not
allowed to possess their own land as the ground they
cultivated was granted only as feudal tenure. Until
1908 military service remained out of the question for
non-Muslims and they were not allowed to carry
weapons. The Ottomans established an Armenian
Apostolic Patriarchate as early as 1461, shortly before
the conquest of the Byzantine capital Constantinople,
whose rule included the pre-Chalcedonian, i.e. the
east and west Syrian churches.

The Armenian Apostolic church was a component of
the millet system. The word millet (Arabic for nation)
designated not an ethnic unit, but a denomination or
religious community. To the three traditional
communities of faith of the Ottoman Empire- the
ermeni milleti (Apostolic Armenian church), the rum
milleti (Greek-Orthodox church) and the yahudi milleti
(Jewish) – were added the katolik millet16 under
pressure from France and Austria in 1831 and the
recognition of the Armenian Protestants (ermeni
protestant milleti) in December 1850. According to
Muslim tradition, the Millets administered their internal
matters and law as long as these concerned only
internal disputes between members of the same millet.


16
A union of all Catholic religion(s) in the Ottoman Empire under the authority of an
Armenian Uniate bishop. - See Koutcharian, Gerayer: Der Siedlungsraum der Armenier
unter dem Einfluss der historisch-politischen Ereignisse seit dem Berliner Kongress 1878:
eine politisch-geographische Analyse und Dokumentation. Berlin, 1989 (Freie Universität
Berlin/Institut für Anthropogeographie, Bd. 43), p. 43
Timid reforms were attempted in the first half of the
19th Century, in the context of the collapse of Ottoman
military despotism, and under pressure from the great
European powers of the time. The Russo-Turkish
Peace Treaty of Adrianople (22 February 1829)
obliged the Ottoman Empire to improve the living
conditions of its Christian subjects for the first time.
Ten years later, in the Constitutional Charter of
Gülhane (1839), Sultan Abdülmecid (Abd al-Majid)
granted the same status to all citizens regardless of
their religion, and guaranteed the integrity of the
person as well as the rights to honour and property.
But it was only after the Crimean War (1853-6) that the
Constitutional declaration of 1839 was implemented,
through the Decree Hatti Hümayun („Imperial Edict”) of
18 February 1856, influenced by the British
Ambassador to Constantinople of the time, Lord
Stratford. As a consequence, Sultan Abdülmecid was
able to convince the Paris conference a few weeks
later, where the outcome of the Crimean War was
negotiated, that his readiness for reform should be
expressly recognized in article 9 of the Treaty of Paris
of 30 March 1856.

Sultan Abdül Aziz, who succeeded his murdered
brother on the throne in 1861, finally topped off the
reforms with the first Ottoman Constitution,
promulgated on 23 December 1876. In this
constitution, all subjects of the Sultan were referred to
as “Ottoman citizens” and guaranteed citizens’ basic
rights as well as individual freedom such as freedom of
conscience, the right to own property, etc. The Millet
system was preserved however, and this is one of the
imperfections of, and contradictions within, the
constitution.

Due to the difficult political situation in the country,
Sultan Abdülhamit II dismissed Parliament on 14
February 1878 and suspended the constitution for 30
years. Under article 61 of the Berlin Treaty (13 July
1878), the Ottoman government was obliged to “carry
out immediate improvements and reforms in the
provinces inhabited by the Armenians, as required by
local needs, and to protect them against the
Circassians and Kurds”. However pressure was not
exerted by the European powers as they had in other
instances- as France had done for instance as the
protective power for the Maronite Uniates in Lebanon
or Russia in protecting the Orthodox Greeks and
Balkan Slavs- because the Armenian Church did not

[Joseph]

Part 5

belong to a supranational religious group within
Christianity.

At the beginning of the 20th century, a Turkish
nationalism developed in response to the freedom
struggles of the Greeks, Balkan Slavs and Arabs. The
turn of events, including the loss of Turkish territories
in the Balkan war (1912-13), confirmed its ideologues
in their belief that the preservation of the Ottoman
Empire required the turkification of this multi-ethnic
and multi-religious country, which would have to be
achieved through the assimilation of Muslim minorities
as well as the deportation, and if necessary the
annihilation, of the Christian groups. The all-powerful
nationalistic war government of the so-called young
Turks, officially called the Committee of Unity and
Progress (Ittihat ve Terakki Cemiyeti), who ruled after
1913, implemented this program in 1913-1914 through
the displacement of the terrorized Greek population of
Eastern Thrakia and of the Ionian. Starting in 1914,
Christian Ottoman citizens,
and particularly Greeks and
Armenians, were exploited to
death in slave labour camps
or murdered. After the
annihilation of the intellectual
and political elite of the
Ottoman Armenians at the end of April 1915, the
annihilation of the total Armenian population, planned
and organised on a national scale, was set initiated.
The reorganised Ottoman intelligence service Te?kilat-
? Mahsusa (“Special Organisation“) of 1916, which
included 30,000 people17 at the height of the genocide,
carried out this task through massacres and death
marches, in which hundreds of thousands of victims
died of plague, hunger and general exhaustion. On 4
October 1916, the German ambassador Radowitz
responded to an enquiry by the Reich’s Chancellor as
follows: “(...) if one estimated the total number of
Turkish Armenians at 2.5 million and the number of
those sent away at 2 million, and accepted the same
ratio between the number of survivors and the dead,
as among the orphans of Sister Rohner, one would
arrive at a number of more than 1.5 million dead and
around 425,000 survivors. The previous estimations of
the dead varied between 800.000 and 1 million and at
first glance do not seem exaggerated18.“


17
Parlar, op. cit., quoted from Avakjan, op. cit., p. 78
18
Parlar, op. cit., quoted from Avakjan, op. cit., p. 78
In genocide research, the genocide of the Armenians,
alongside that of the European Jews, the genocide of
the Khmer Rouge, and that of the Hutus in Rwanda is
considered an example of ”total genocide19 “. Robert F.
Melson defines it as „the first total Genocide of the
20th century“ and a “prototype for the following
genocides”. The Association of Genocide Scholars,
declared on 13 June 1997 in a resolution, “that the
mass murder that was committed to the Armenians in
Turkey in 1915 represents a case of Genocide
according to the United Nations Convention on the
prevention and punishment of genocide. [The
Association of Genocide Scholars] condemns the
denial of the Armenian Genocide by the Turkish
government, their official and unofficial agents, and
their supporters20.“

With the Peace Treaty of Sèvres (10 August 1920) the
de facto powerless Ottoman government recognised
Armenia as an independent country (Art. 88) and
agreed that US President
Woodrow Wilson21 would
determine the boundaries of
the Armenian State. But the
changes failed due to the
armed and political resistance
of the opposition established
by Mustafa Kemal in Ankara and triggered an attack
on the Republic of Armenia, planned in the spring of
1920 and launched on 23 September 1920. A further
198,000 Armenians22 died from massacres, epidemics
and starvation before the assault was stopped by the
Sovietization of the Armenian Republic.

The armistice of Mudanya, which followed the takeover
of Smyrna and Constantinople by Ankara’s opposition
troops on 11 October 1922, opened the way for an
International Peace Conference in Lausanne on 20
November 1922, whose subcommittee for national
affairs considered the Armenian demand for a
homeland for the surviving Armenians (12-14
December 1922). At the Committee meeting of 7 July

19
See Melson, Robert F. : Revolution and Genocide. On the Origins of the Armenian
Genocide and the Holocaust, Chicago, 1992; Scherrer, Christian P.: Preventing Genocide:
The Role of the International Community. Internet source:

http://www.preventgenocide.org/prevent/scherrer.htm;

20
quoted from Armenian National Institute, Internet source: http://www.armenian-
genocide.org/affirmation/recognition/69.htm
21
According to the Wilson-decision of 22.11.1920, the Republic Armenia was awarded an
increase of 90.000 square kilometers of Ottoman territory.which included parts of “
armenian provinces” Wan (20.000 square kilometers of 39.300 total area), Bitlis (15.000 of
27.100 square kilometers) and Erzurum (40.000 of 49.700 square kilometers).
22
See the disscussion of the numbers of the victims in Koutcharian’s documentation, op.
cit., p. 156
The Lausanne Treaty indirectly
revives the Ottoman millet system,
in contradiction with the officially
secular nature of the Turkish
Republic

[Joseph]

Part 6

1923 there was no longer talk of the right to self-
determination or to a homeland for the Armenians, but
rather only of the “Armenian refugees“. The solution of
this problem was entrusted to the League of Nations.

The Armenians are thus no longer mentioned in the
Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923. Protection is not
granted to ethnic groups, but exclusively to non-
Muslim religious minorities, i.e. Christians and Jews.
The far more numerous non-Turkish Muslim ethnic
groups of Turkey are ignored and suffer to this day of
the denial of the rights denied them in the fields of
culture, language and tradition. Although the Lausanne
Treaty does not list the non-Muslims of Turkey by
name, it only acknowledges the Christian
Denominations already recognized in the Ottoman
Empire as millets, i.e. the Greek Orthodox (rum millet),
Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Uniates and Armenian
Protestants. The Syrian churches suffer to this day of
the fact that they are deprived even of the very limited
protection of the Lausanne Treaty.

A government body called the Minority Commission
(Az?nl?klar Tali Komisyonu) is competent for and
endowed with full powers on matters relating to
minority affairs. Although the existence of this
Commission only became known in 1999, it seems
that it has existed in secret since 1972. Established at
the request of the Prime Minister, its exact functions
and competence are still unclear. The Minority
Commission is believed to be composed of five
members, including one representative each from the
“National Security Council” (Milli Güvenlik Konseyi),
the “National Intelligence Service” (Milli ?stihbarat
Te?kilat?), the Interior and the foreign ministries, and a
Ministry of State subordinate to the Prime Minister’s
office with responsibility for foundations. A
representative of the Health or Education Ministry is
consulted on questions concerning minority hospitals
and schools. The decisions of the Committee are
irrevocable, they cannot be appealed even by the
minorities themselves, and cannot even be overturned
by an order of the courts23.
















1923 there was no longer talk of the right to self-
determination or to a homeland for the Armenians, but
rather only of the “Armenian refugees“. The solution of
this problem was entrusted to the League of Nations.

The Armenians are thus no longer mentioned in the
Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923. Protection is not
granted to ethnic groups, but exclusively to non-
Muslim religious minorities, i.e. Christians and Jews.
The far more numerous non-Turkish Muslim ethnic
groups of Turkey are ignored and suffer to this day of
the denial of the rights denied them in the fields of
culture, language and tradition. Although the Lausanne
Treaty does not list the non-Muslims of Turkey by
name, it only acknowledges the Christian
Denominations already recognized in the Ottoman
Empire as millets, i.e. the Greek Orthodox (rum millet),
Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Uniates and Armenian
Protestants. The Syrian churches suffer to this day of
the fact that they are deprived even of the very limited
protection of the Lausanne Treaty.

A government body called the Minority Commission
(Az?nl?klar Tali Komisyonu) is competent for and
endowed with full powers on matters relating to
minority affairs. Although the existence of this
Commission only became known in 1999, it seems
that it has existed in secret since 1972. Established at
the request of the Prime Minister, its exact functions
and competence are still unclear. The Minority
Commission is believed to be composed of five
members, including one representative each from the
“National Security Council” (Milli Güvenlik Konseyi),
the “National Intelligence Service” (Milli ?stihbarat
Te?kilat?), the Interior and the foreign ministries, and a
Ministry of State subordinate to the Prime Minister’s
office with responsibility for foundations. A
representative of the Health or Education Ministry is
consulted on questions concerning minority hospitals
and schools. The decisions of the Committee are
irrevocable, they cannot be appealed even by the
minorities themselves, and cannot even be overturned
by an order of the courts23.
























1923 there was no longer talk of the right to self-
determination or to a homeland for the Armenians, but
rather only of the “Armenian refugees“. The solution of
this problem was entrusted to the League of Nations.

The Armenians are thus no longer mentioned in the
Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923. Protection is not
granted to ethnic groups, but exclusively to non-
Muslim religious minorities, i.e. Christians and Jews.
The far more numerous non-Turkish Muslim ethnic
groups of Turkey are ignored and suffer to this day of
the denial of the rights denied them in the fields of
culture, language and tradition. Although the Lausanne
Treaty does not list the non-Muslims of Turkey by
name, it only acknowledges the Christian
Denominations already recognized in the Ottoman
Empire as millets, i.e. the Greek Orthodox (rum millet),
Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Uniates and Armenian
Protestants. The Syrian churches suffer to this day of
the fact that they are deprived even of the very limited
protection of the Lausanne Treaty.

A government body called the Minority Commission
(Az?nl?klar Tali Komisyonu) is competent for and
endowed with full powers on matters relating to
minority affairs. Although the existence of this
Commission only became known in 1999, it seems
that it has existed in secret since 1972. Established at
the request of the Prime Minister, its exact functions
and competence are still unclear. The Minority
Commission is believed to be composed of five
members, including one representative each from the
“National Security Council” (Milli Güvenlik Konseyi),
the “National Intelligence Service” (Milli ?stihbarat
Te?kilat?), the Interior and the foreign ministries, and a
Ministry of State subordinate to the Prime Minister’s
office with responsibility for foundations. A
representative of the Health or Education Ministry is
consulted on questions concerning minority hospitals
and schools. The decisions of the Committee are
irrevocable, they cannot be appealed even by the
minorities themselves, and cannot even be overturned
by an order of the courts23.

























1923 there was no longer talk of the right to self-
determination or to a homeland for the Armenians, but
rather only of the “Armenian refugees“. The solution of
this problem was entrusted to the League of Nations.

The Armenians are thus no longer mentioned in the
Treaty of Lausanne of 24 July 1923. Protection is not
granted to ethnic groups, but exclusively to non-
Muslim religious minorities, i.e. Christians and Jews.
The far more numerous non-Turkish Muslim ethnic
groups of Turkey are ignored and suffer to this day of
the denial of the rights denied them in the fields of
culture, language and tradition. Although the Lausanne
Treaty does not list the non-Muslims of Turkey by
name, it only acknowledges the Christian
Denominations already recognized in the Ottoman
Empire as millets, i.e. the Greek Orthodox (rum millet),
Armenian Apostolic, Armenian Uniates and Armenian
Protestants. The Syrian churches suffer to this day of
the fact that they are deprived even of the very limited
protection of the Lausanne Treaty.

A government body called the Minority Commission
(Az?nl?klar Tali Komisyonu) is competent for and
endowed with full powers on matters relating to
minority affairs. Although the existence of this
Commission only became known in 1999, it seems
that it has existed in secret since 1972. Established at
the request of the Prime Minister, its exact functions
and competence are still unclear. The Minority
Commission is believed to be composed of five
members, including one representative each from the
“National Security Council” (Milli Güvenlik Konseyi),
the “National Intelligence Service” (Milli ?stihbarat
Te?kilat?), the Interior and the foreign ministries, and a
Ministry of State subordinate to the Prime Minister’s
office with responsibility for foundations. A
representative of the Health or Education Ministry is
consulted on questions concerning minority hospitals
and schools. The decisions of the Committee are
irrevocable, they cannot be appealed even by the
minorities themselves, and cannot even be overturned
by an order of the courts23.

























To be cont.