US embassy cable - 03ISTANBUL202

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ISTANBUL 000202 
 
SIPDIS 
 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 02/06/2013 
TAGS: PGOV, PHUM, TU, Istanbul 
SUBJECT: RELIGIOUS MINORITIES APPREHENSIVE OF LATEST 
FOUNDATION REGULATIONS 
 
REF: A. 02 ANKARA 8881 
     B. 02 ANKARA 7290 
     C. 02 ANKARA 6116 
     D. 02 STATE 44732 
 
 
Classified By: CONSUL GENERAL DAVID ARNETT FOR REASONS 1.5 (B) AND (D). 
 
 
 
 
1. (C) Summary: The General Directorate for Foundations 
recently enacted regulations that were expected to allow 
community (i.e. non-Muslim religious) foundations to reclaim 
seized properties.  The new regulations are part of the 
EU-harmonization reforms aimed at enhancing religious 
minority rights and, it was hoped, allowing foundations to 
reclaim seized properties.  Reaction from non-Muslim 
community leaders ranged from outrage to indifference to 
near-contentment, depending upon a community's reading of the 
regulations and the amount of each community's disputed 
property.  However, one fact is unquestioned: property 
acquisition and registration remains squarely in the 
unsupervised hands of the General Directorate for 
Foundations, the very body accused of appropriating many of 
the properties to begin with.  End Summary. 
 
 
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THE NEW REGULATIONS 
------------------- 
 
 
2. (U)  The new regulations, published in the Official 
Gazette January 24, address three different issues: how 
community foundations can acquire property, how they may use 
such property, and how they may register "property already at 
their disposal" (i.e. occupied but unregistered property). 
Each portion of the regulation has its own ambiguities and 
legal complexities. 
 
 
3. (U) In the case of acquisition, it is unclear whether 
newer religious community foundations, not currently on the 
list, will be allowed to acquire further property as their 
community grows.  In the case of older communities with 
shrinking populations, it is not clear if they will have the 
option of acquiring new properties at all, as they will have 
to explain, even if the property is willed or donated, what 
"religious, charitable, social, educational, cultural, and 
health needs" the new property will meet.  The Ecumenical 
Patriarchate and other communities with rapidly dwindling 
populations fear that the General Directorate for 
Foundations, the arbiter of whether the property may be 
acquired, will deny them the inheritance, saying their needs 
are already met by current properties. 
 
 
4. (U) In the case of disposition of property already owned 
and properly registered, the foundations are allowed to 
"exercise their power of disposition of the property" in 
order to meet the needs listed above.  However, "the exercise 
of real rights shall be subject to the permission of the 
General Directorate for Foundations."  Thus, rental or sale 
of an existing property is not an unsupervised right. 
 
 
5. (U) In the case of registration of currently owned 
property, the regulation seems to preclude the possibility of 
restitution for properties seized by the GoT between 1935 and 
the present.  Though the regulation is generous as to what 
documents can be used to buttress an application for 
registration (including utility bills, Ottoman deeds and 
registries, and unapproved deed inspection records), the 
caveat that the property must be "under the disposal of the 
foundation" suggests that only property with documentation 
problems, rather than property expropriated by the State, 
will be covered under the law.  Thus, one major point it was 
hoped the new law would ameliorate is not addressed by the 
regulation. 
 
 
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GENERAL REACTIONS 
----------------- 
 
 
6. (U)  Poloff spoke with representatives of all major 
communities affected by the new regulations (the Ecumenical 
Patriarchate, Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate, Suriyani 
Orthodox Metropolitan, Jewish Community, and Chaldean 
Catholics).  Since the law is written specifically for 
community foundations, the list of relevant groups was 
appended to the regulation, though there is no mention of 
what inclusion on the list of 160 foundations means.  Whether 
or not these are the only parties who can make use of the law 
is unclear.  The portion of the law related to registration 
of currently owned property covers the years 1935 to present 
(and the list of foundations is roughly accurate for those 
registered in 1936).  However, it is unclear if newer 
foundations, such as the Istanbul Protestant Church 
Foundation, can make use of the new "acquisition" regulations 
or not, as they were not listed in the appendix. 
7. (U) Of the total 160 foundations listed, the Ecumenical 
Patriarchate has 74.  The Armenian Orthodox Patriarchate has 
34 foundations.  The Jewish Community has 18, Suriyanis 6, 
and Chaldean Catholics 3. 
 
 
8. (C) Reactions to the regulation diverge widely. 
Metropolitan Meliton of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, who has 
principal responsibility for property issues, argues the 
regulations are "one step forward, three steps back," in that 
they fail to recognize or give status to the Patriarchate, 
split Halki into two foundations, and make no provision for 
the re-acquisition of expropriated property.  Armenian 
Orthodox, Suriyani and Chaldean Catholic churches are also 
pessimistic about the regulations' limitations to varying 
degrees, but suggest that the law may open some possibilities 
for normalization of unresolved property problems and new 
property acquisition.  Finally, the Jewish Community is most 
optimistic, seeing no new problems created by the law, and 
some utility in the registration process.  Except for the 
Armenians and Greeks, all the communities with which post met 
agreed that the appended foundation list was complete. 
 
 
----------------- 
SPECIFIC CONCERNS 
----------------- 
 
 
9. (C) "A Patriarch is not a Foundation": Greek and Armenian 
Orthodox churches hold that their patriarchs, and the 
immediate facilities in which they reside and work, are not 
foundations, but simply patriarchates.  As such, they should 
be allowed to own and acquire property, as well as register 
the property they now inhabit, in their own right (in both 
cases, the patriarchates do not have any legal status or 
deed, despite centuries of residence).  Unlike the 
Hahamhanesi (Chief Rabbinate), they have no established 
foundation for the patriarchate itself, and argue that a 
foundation is unacceptable because the patriarch alone 
decides how the property should be administered, not a 
committee (as is required in the law governing foundations). 
This political and semantic fight prevents both parties from 
coming to a modus vivendi with the GoT under the new 
regulations, and continues a decades-old stand-off over what, 
exactly, a patriarch is under Turkish law. 
 
 
10. (C) "Applying to the Thief": Greek and Armenian Orthodox 
and Chaldean Catholic churches all see restitution of 
expropriated property as impossible under this law.  Legal 
problems "created" (in their terms) by the GoT in the 
thirties prevented non-Muslim communities from either 
registering properties or forming their own foundations. 
Accordingly, over the course of the next 60 years, their 
properties were taken over by the General Directorate of 
Foundations.  No mention is made in the regulation of how to 
apply for restitution of properties which were seized, only 
how to register properties which are still in the 
communities' possession, but lack proper documentation. 
Though all concede that the law technically could be 
interpreted to allow for some form of restitution, such an 
application must be approved by the General Directorate for 
Foundations, the very body which took the properties to begin 
with.  In the words of Fr. Francois Yakan of the Chaldean 
Catholic Church, "that would be like applying to the thief to 
get your wallet back." 
 
 
------- 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
 
11. (C) The regulations fall well short of providing a 
transparent and efficient means to reconcile property 
seizures that the GoT itself recognizes were unlawful. 
Normalization of the status of property already in the hands 
of the foundations demands a willingness on the part of the 
foundation to accommodate to the General Directorate's 
willful interpretations of the law.  The Jewish Community 
long ago elected to accommodate itself.  The Greek and 
Armenian Orthodox churches continue to hold their political 
ground in the interests of establishing a transparent and 
reliable approach on the part of the General Directorate. 
End comment. 
ARNETT