Armenian community split over businessman's remarks

Thursday, April 1, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Angered by a Turkish-Armenian representative’s failure to emphasize the group’s suffering in 1915 during a recent meeting with the prime minister, community members have demanded “civilian” leadership within the community through an online petition.

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The intra-communal split stems from a March 26 meeting in Ankara between Bedros Şirinoğlu, president of the Yedikule Surp Pırgiç Armenian Hospital Foundation, and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

During their conversation, Şirinoğlu, who is also a prominent businessman, described the events of 1915 as “a fight between two brothers,” and said Armenians in Turkey have no problems whatsoever.

Furious at the remarks, some members of the Armenian community have started an online petition campaign at bizbaskabirturkiyedeyasiyoruz.blogspot.com, a domain name that means “We are living in another Turkey.” The petition had been signed by 378 individuals as the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review went to press Thursday.

Speaking to the Daily News, Şirinoğlu said he was deeply sorry about the issue. “I do not deny what was experienced, but calling it ‘genocide’ does no good to anyone,” he said.

On his being described as the representative of the Armenian community, he said he “does not need any titles.”

“The people are unfortunately unaware of one fact: Anybody who is the president of the Yedikule Surp Pırgiç Armenian Hospital Foundation has been described as a community representative since Ottoman times and has special protocol status in Ankara,” he said. “It is not a title exclusive to me. I am not glued to this chair either – anybody who wants to become president can do so when my term ends.”

Rakel Dink, the widow of assassinated Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, and other Dink family members are among those who have signed the online petition. Signatories see the petition as a first step on the path toward “civilianizing” the community.

Pakrad Öztukyan, editor at the weekly Agos, where Dink once worked, is among the signatories. “This is the reaction of the Armenian people, a denominational stance and a first step on the path toward civilianization,” he told the Daily News.

Öztukyan claimed Şirinoğlu is the president of the foundation “only because he is wealthy” and “makes donations to community foundations.”

“He is … someone who has ‘bought’ the position,” Öztukyan said. “Şirinoğlu cannot speak in the name of the people.”

Other Turkish Armenians, however, have kept their distance from the dispute. Arsen Aşık, a retired academic from Boğaziçi University, said both sides are “making superficial criticisms” without understanding each other. “Both sides have valid points, but they also have wrong points,” he said.

Erdoğan’s outburst

The dispute, however, is not limited to the petition and is the result of events that have occurred within the community over the past five months.

In November 2009, prominent community members met with the prime minister under the direction of the spiritual leader of the Armenian Patriarchate of Turkey, Aram Ateşyan, at Dolmabahçe Palace in Istanbul.

Şirinoğlu was among those who attended the meeting, which apparently laid the foundation for Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s outburst against undocumented Armenians during a BBC interview on March 16, in which said there were “170,000 Armenians in Turkey,” and threatened to expel the undocumented ones, which he said totaled 100,000.

“This figure that the prime minister pronounced was the result of the meddling of a friend of ours at the November meeting,” Şirinoğlu said. “Our friend said there were 100,000 undocumented Armenians from Armenia in Turkey and 70,000 Turkish Armenians. Yet, I was held responsible for that remark.”

Although there is no exact figure, the number of undocumented Armenian workers in Turkey is no more than 14,000, according to recent research.

The number was not discussed during the Ankara meeting, Şirinoğlu said.

“We had just asked for an appointment as a foundation. We have serious [legal] issues about the properties of the foundation and its income. We have conveyed our complaints on those matters. The media assumed we were in Ankara because of the prime minister’s remarks, but that is not the truth,” he said.

“My grandfather was a priest in Bahçecik in İzmit. He was murdered in 1915. His throat was slit because he would not cut his beard. Traces of half my family are unknown. I do not deny what has been experienced. I have told my story to the prime minister as well,” Şirinoğlu said.

“What has been experienced between Turks and Armenians was a fight among brothers; a scenario prepared by the West. I could have described what happened as genocide, but that would do no one any good,” he said.

Şirinoğlu also told the Daily News that the Armenian community is experiencing a chaotic period due to of the illness of Patriarch Mesrop II.

“Everybody wants to become prominent and be recognized by the masses,” he said. “There are those who are even using the illness of Mesrop II to their own advantage. The patriarchy elections were interrupted because of that. [The community is waiting for] the approval from the Patriarchy and [the Ministry of the] Interior for an election date. If Istanbul Armenians continue to play tricks, they will endure great harm