ECUMENICAL PATRIARCH: KINALIADA CONTROVERSY BOILS

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
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