Grandchild of ‘Crimson Sultan’ goes to court for Mosul oil

Grandchild of ‘Crimson Sultan’ goes to court for Mosul oil

Sunday, January 10, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Beyzade Bülent Osman, grandson of Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamit II, is preparing to go to court to claim the rich oil reserves of Mosul. Osman, who calls himself an Ottoman of French origin, also has thoughts on the association of his grandfather with the Armenian issue: ‘I am on the side of the truth, but we need to look to the future now’

Beyzade Bülent Osman, grandson of Ottoman Sultan Abdülhamit II, known as the “Crimson Sultan,” is preparing to go to court to claim oil reserves around the city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

Osman is the son of Abdülhamit II’s youngest daughter, Naime Sultan, who spent the last years of her life in exile after the fall of the Ottoman Empire. Osman spoke to the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review at his modest house in the Teşvikiye neighborhood of Istanbul.

“My mother lived her last days dealing with financial problems, as many of our family members did since everything that belonged to my grandfather was confiscated, including his personal items,” Osman said.

Osman’s father had been exploring legal avenues to claim the rights to the Mosul oil reserves until his death, yet those efforts had been fruitless, he said. “Mosul’s oil [reserves] were not purchased by the money of the state but with money Abdülhamit owned personally,” Osman said.

He criticized Britain’s stance on the issue. “My family was promised by Britain during World War I that the income would be shared. Unfortunately, this promise was not kept,” he said. “I have been in contact with top officials in Ankara about the matter and the legal process will be started as soon as possible.”

Osman recounted the story of his grandfather’s purchase of Mosul’s oil reserves based on the details he heard from his grandmother. “Abdülhamit II noticed the British were paying frequent visits to Iraq and consulted palace bureaucrats on the issue,” he said. “The civil servants told him to see Kalust Gulbenkian, a member of the Ottoman-Armenian community who was studying at Galatasaray High School. He later made an international name for himself as an oil tradesman.”

According to Osman, Abdülhamit summoned Gulbenkian, who told the sultan that Britain was using Iraq’s oil to power their cars. “My grandfather happened to be the owner of the oil reserves of Mosul thanks to Gulbenkian,” he said.

The Armenian issue and the Crimson Sultan

The world knows Sultan Abdülhamit II as a key name related to the Armenian issue and the events of 1915, recognized as genocide by many countries, a claim Turkey rejects. “I am on the side of truth,” Osman said on the issue. “The French and the Germans had also slaughtered each other, came into conflict but still managed to establish dialogue. We have to leave history behind us and look ahead.”

Osman also said his family “owed their lives” to French-Armenians after their exile from Turkey. “We were penniless,” he told the Daily News. “Our Armenian friends helped us. There was an Armenian lady who welcomed us to her chateau and we lived there for a long time. I cannot deny the good deeds Armenians have done for my family.”

The Ottoman dynasty was ordered into exile with a law passed by the Turkish Parliament on March 3, 1924. While their assets were seized, the members of the imperial family were given 2,000 pounds sterling each and special “one-way passports” that could not be used to enter the country again. The first to go into exile was the last caliph, Abdülmecid, while the last to leave was Fatma Sultan, daughter of Sultan Murad V.

Born in France, Osman is now 80 years old. He said he witnessed his grandmother crying many times when he was a child. Only learning Turkish later in life, he said: “My grandmother and mother wanted us to learn Turkish. They thought Mustafa Kemal Atatürk would be unsuccessful in his cause and that we would return to the old days. My father, however, was a republican by all means and was supportive of Atatürk’s principles.”

All suffering from financial problems, exiled members of the Ottoman dynasty dispersed to the world’s major cities, including Paris, London and New York. Only in 1952, under then-Prime Minister Adnan Menderes, were some members allowed to return to Turkey, he said.

“That law opened the path for women to return to Turkey and become citizens once more. Men, on the other hand, were only able to win this right in 1974 through a general amnesty granted by the late Prime Minister Bülent Ecevit,” he said.

Heir as a Michelin employee

Osman defines himself as “an Ottoman of French origin” and said Turkey should “rehabilitate the reputation of the Ottoman dynasty.”

He said his life had been hard but that changed after applying for a job at Michelin. “During my time with Michelin, I worked in every country that used to be a part of the Ottoman Empire,” he said. “I first visited Istanbul during the 1990s, shortly after my father’s passing.”