US embassy cable - 05ISTANBUL1333

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 001333 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR EUR/SE 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/02/2015 
TAGS: PGOV, PREL, TU, OSCE, Istanbul 
SUBJECT: ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH:  KINALIADA CONTROVERSY BOILS 
OVER 
 
REF: ANKARA 3887 
 
Classified By: A/CG Stuart Smith for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
1.  (C) Summary:  Controversy flared this week between the 
GOT and the Ecumenical Patriarch after Turkish bureaucrats 
delayed the opening of a longstanding youth summer camp at a 
monastery on Kinali Island in an attempt to force church 
officials to recognize state seizure of that property. 
Church officials refused and the Patriarch used the camp's 
opening ceremony on July 29 to demand that Turkey respect the 
Orthodox community's rights and stop treating its members 
like second-class citizens, promising to apply for his 
community's rights at the European Court of Human Rights if 
the Turkish judiciary could not provide them.  Deputy Prime 
Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin reacted angrily, accusing him of 
"going too far" and saying that legal action might be taken 
against him.  Both the Kinali Island camp approval process 
and Sahin's disproportionate reaction to the Patriarch's 
remarks illustrate the animosity many in Turkish officialdom 
feel toward minority religious communities, at a time when 
reconciliation and problem-solving should be at the top of 
the agenda with October 3 fast approaching. End summary. 
 
2.  (C)  Why now?:  Patriarchate administrative staffer Paul 
Gikas told poloff on August 2 that the Patriarchate had been 
organizing summer camps for years at the Hristos Monastery on 
Kinali Island (the closest to Istanbul of the Princes' 
Islands in the Marmara Sea).  He confirmed press reports 
that, during this year's approval process for the summer 
camp, the General Directorate of Foundations (Vakiflar) asked 
the Patriarch to sign a form acknowledging that the State 
owned the monastery.  (Note:  The State reportedly 
expropriated the foundation that owned the monastary in 1967, 
due to an alleged lack of foundation administrators.  End 
note.) 
 
3.  (C)  Just sign on the dotted line:  As religious 
minorities do not believe the State's seizure of such 
properties was legitimate, and indeed, are fighting those 
past decisions, the Patriarch refused to sign the form.  This 
delayed, but did not ultimately block, the camp's opening. 
Though one press report claimed that the same form was 
required last year, Gikas thought the request for the form 
was new this year and a reversal in policy from previous 
years.  Gikas estimated some 30-40 children were 
participating in the camp, but that there would be fewer than 
in previous years, as some parents gave up on sending their 
children due to the controversy surrounding the camp's 
opening. 
 
4.  (U) Frustration boils over:  Speaking at the July 29 
opening of the camp, Bartholomew expressed his frustration 
with Turkey's General Directorate of Foundations and in 
general, reportedly stating that if Turks "really want to 
become Europeans, we must change our attitudes, not just make 
some reforms...that are sometimes implemented and sometimes 
not."  He promised that if the Patriarchate cannot obtain its 
rights through the Turkish justice system, then it would 
apply for them abroad, at the European Court of Human Rights. 
 The Greek minority did not just dwindle from 120,000 to 
2,000 for no reason, he added. 
 
5.  (SBU)  You've gone too far!:  Subsequent to the 
Patriarch's July 29 remarks, Deputy Mehmet Ali Sahin told the 
press that the Patriarch had gone too far, and was quoted in 
numerous dailies as ready to look into legal action against 
him, though he did not specify what law, if any, he thought 
may have been broken.  Sahin claimed that minority 
foundations in Turkey are seeking greater rights than those 
accorded to Muslim foundations.  He asserted that there is no 
discrimination against non-Muslim foundations, and that of 
the more than 41,000 foundations the State has expropriated 
over the years, only 40-50 of them are "non-Muslim."  (Note: 
Per reftel, the number of Christian and Jewish foundations 
the State has expropriated is 59.  When the State 
expropriates a foundation it also takes control of its 
affiliated properties, and these 59 foundations possessed 
hundreds of properties.  End note.)  Gikas told poloff he had 
not heard anything about charges being pursued against the 
Patriarch as of August 2. 
 
6.  (C) One step forward?:  In a less publicized development 
over the weekend, and not directly related to the Kinaliada 
controversy, press reported that the Council of State 
(Danistay) ruled in favor of the Buyukada Greek Boys and 
Girls Orphanage Foundation in a dispute about that 
foundation's status.  Earlier court decisions had sided with 
the Vakiflar decision in 1997 to take over administration of 
the foundation, as it was no longer providing any services. 
According to the Metropolitan of Philadelphia, who is among 
the Patriarch's most senior advisors, the Patriarchate has 
not yet received an official notice about this development. 
Moreover, the Patriarchate had already submitted a case 
regarding ownership rights to the foundation's orphanage 
property to the European Court of Human Rights, thus the 
status of the foundation is not the only matter at stake. 
 
7.  (C) Comment:  The Kinali Island summer camp story 
provides a concrete example of the frustrating bureaucracy 
and old attitudes religious minorities must face.  As the 
GOT's left hand develops a new foundations law with the 
putative goal of enabling religious minority foundations to 
retrieve some of the properties expropriated by the State, 
the right hand requires paperwork that ensures there will be 
no solution.  The Patriarch has privately expressed 
frustration with such bureaucratic delaying tactics for some 
time now; the government's heavy-handed attempt to use the 
summer camp to force recognition of the monastery's seizure 
finally drove him to publicly air his concerns.  Sahin surely 
was playing to his party's Islamist base, as well as to 
extreme Turkish nationalists, with his defensive and angry 
response to the Patriarch, but to many observers, his bluster 
and threats are old-fashioned and downright anti-democratic. 
This exchange does not bode well for any new momentum in the 
reform process as it relates to religious minority property 
issues.  End comment. 
SMITH