![Sample our Politics & International Relations journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5947/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Politics-International-Relations.jpg"})
Abstract
The fate of Turkey's non-Muslim minorities has been somehow linked to the country's foreign policy since the eighteenth century. Throughout the Ottoman era, the early years of the Republic and the Cold War period, foreign policy issues had a mostly negative impact on the treatment of the non-Muslim minorities, engendering the state's suspicion and repression. This has changed at the turn of the twenty-first century, with the emergence of a new variable in Turkish foreign policy: The European Union. Reforms undertaken by Ankara since then have considerably transformed the scene, although challenges do still remain, demonstrating the dialectical nature of the issue.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to express their gratitude to Mr Georgios Benlisoy from the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Istanbul for his invaluable help throughout their research.
Notes
† In memory of Mehmet Ali Birand, a defiant defender of minority rights in Turkey.
1 Although there are no accurate data on non-Muslim minorities, Armenian Gregorian Christians are estimated at 65,000, Jews at 23,000 and Greek Orthodox Christians at between 2000 and 4000. Moreover, 15,000 Syriac Orthodox Christians, 5000 Yezidis, 3300 Jehovah's witnesses, 3000 Protestants and a small indeterminate number of Bulgarians, Chaldeans, Nestorians, Georgians, Roman Catholics and Maronite Christians reportedly also live on Turkish territory, all this according to the Report of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Human Rights of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly, entitled “Freedom of Religion and Other Human Rights for non-Muslim Minorities in Turkey and for the Muslim Minority in Thrace (Eastern Greece)” and prepared by Rapporteur Michel Hunault on April 21, 2009, under Document No. 11860. The Report was approved by the Assembly on January 27, 2010.
2 Hobza, “Questions de droit international concernant les religions.”
3 Borrmans, “La liberté religieuse dans les pays d'Islam.”
4 Ortaylı, “Non-Muslim Communities.”
5 Les minorités en Turquie- Leurs privilèges, Leurs droits politiques, 16.
6 Mandelstam, “La protection des minorités.”
7 Achour, “Souveraineté et protection internationale des minorités.”
8 Horowitz, “International Law and State Transformation.”
9 Erim, Devletlerarası Hukuk ve Siyasi Tarih Metinleri.
10 Genoa (1615) and Poland (1655) enjoyed a comparable regime. See Lanarès, La liberté religieuse dans les conventions internationales et dans le droit public en général.
11 Passarowitz (1718), Belgrade (1739) and Zistow (1791).
12 Erim, Devletlerarası Hukuk ve Siyasî Tarih Metinleri, 174–297.
13 Kançal, “La conquête du marché ottoman par le capitalisme industriel concurrentiel (1838–1881).”
14 Erim, Devletlerarası Hukuk ve Siyasî Tarih Metinleri, 174–297.
15 Negative rights aiming to implement the first principle figure at art. 38 to 39; positive rights concerning the second principle appear at art. 40 to 43. Art. 44 concerns the guarantee of the League of Nations: the provisions are considered obligations of international interest and they cannot be modified without the consent of the majority of the Council of the League of Nations. Art 45 stipulates that the rights and freedoms provided by Chapter 3 are equally recognized by Greece for the Muslim minority living in its territory.
16 Bilsel, “Medenî Kanun ve Lozan Muahedesi.”
17 Bali, Cumhuriyet Yıllarında Türkiye Yahudileri- Bir Türkleştirme Serüveni.
18 According to Art. 42:
The Turkish Government agrees to take, for Non-Muslim Minorities, regarding their family or personal status, all dispositions allowing to settle these questions according to the customs of these minorities … These dispositions shall be elaborated by special commissions of even number of representatives of the Government's and of representatives of the each minority concerned.
19 Bilsel, “Medenî Kanun ve Lozan Muahedesi.” 44–53.
20 See Oran, “The Minority Concept and Rights in Turkey.”
21 Such as the 1934 Law no. 2510 on Settlements; the 1934 Regulation No. 2/1777 on Settlement Exemptions; 1937 Vacancy Announcements of the Air Force Academy, Military Veterinary School, War Academy, etc. quoted by Oran, Türkiye'de Azınlıklar: Kavramlar, Lozan, İç Mevzuat, İçtihat, Uygulama.
22 Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations 1918–1974.
23 Çetin, “Yerli Yabancılar.”
24 Lewis, The Emergence of Modern Turkey.
25 Among the 1500 people sent to the Aşkale camp near Erzurum, 800 were of Jewish origin and the rest were of Greek and Armenian descent.
26 Alexandris, The Greek Minority of Istanbul and Greek-Turkish Relations 1918–1974, 224–225.
27 Türkiye Emekçi Partisi Kararı (Decision on Turkish Worker's Party), E.S. 1979/1, (Party Closure) K.S. 1980/1, K. G. 8.5.1980, AYMKD, No. 18, p. 31., Demokrasi Partisi Kararı (Decision on Democracy Party), E:S. 1993/3, (Party Closure) K.S. 1994/2, K. G. 16.6.1994, Resmî Gazete (Official Gazette) 30.6.1994, issue 21976, p. 106.
28 E:S. 1993/3, (Party Closure) K.S. 1994/2, K. G. 16.6.1994, Resmî Gazete (Official Gazette), 30.6.1994, issue 21976, p. 103.
29 Afetinan, Medeni Bilgiler ve M. Kemal Atatürk’ün El Yazıları.
30 Fırat, “6–7 Eylül Olayları.”
31 Ibid., 592, 602.
32 In his letter dated June 5, 1964, President Johnson reminded the Turkish Prime Minister in a very harsh tone that the 1947 Turkish−American bilateral treaty did not allow Turkey to use weapons provided by the USA without the latter's prior approval and that in case of Soviet reaction to an eventual Turkish intervention in Cyprus, NATO would not necessarily support Turkey, its member since 1952.
33 For this part, see Oran, “The Minority Concept and Rights in Turkey: The Lausanne Peace Treaty and Current Issues.”
34 Ibid., 53.
35 Kurban and Hatemi, The Story Of An Alien(Ation).
36 See Oran, “The Minority Concept and Rights in Turkey: The Lausanne Peace Treaty and Current Issues,” 53; and Emre Öktem, “Statut juridique des fondations des communautés non-musulmanes en Turquie,” 489.
37 See Note 1 for full reference to the Hunault Report.
38 Provisional Article 17 of the Decree-Law 651, Resmi Gazete (Official Gazette) issue no. 28038, August 27, 2011.
39 Reported by the daily Milliyet, on August 28, 2011.
40 Whereas, by declaring admissible a request lodged by the Ecumenical Patriarchate concerning the Büyükada orphanage, the European Court of Human Rights has implicitly recognized the former's legal personality. It subsequently condemned Turkey for violating the right to property on the basis of Art. 1 of Protocol 1 to the European Convention human rights (The Ecumenical Patriarchate vs. Turkey, 14340/05, July 8, 2008)
41 “Opinion on the Legal Status of Religious Communities in Turkey and the Right of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Istanbul to use the adjective Ecumenical,” adopted by the Venice Commission at its 82nd Plenary Session, Strasbourg, March 15, 2010, Opinion no. 535/2009.
42 The background to the case was a dispute between the Patriarchate and a priest of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church. Since the Patriarchate itself is not a legal institution, the party to the case, including the Patriarch, was listed as private persons. Case no. 2005/10694, judgment by the 4th Penal Chamber of the High Court of Appeals (available in English), quoted by “Opinion on the Legal Status of Religious Communities in Turkey and the Right of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Istanbul to use the adjective Ecumenical”, adopted by the Venice Commission at its 82nd Plenary Session, Strasbourg,15 March 2010, Opinion no. 535/2009, Note 47.
43 “Opinion on the Legal Status of Religious Communities in Turkey and the Right of the Orthodox Patriarchate of Istanbul to use the adjective Ecumenical”, adopted by the Venice Commission at its 82nd Plenary Session, Strasbourg,15 March 2010, Opinion no. 535/2009, Conclusions.
44 Prodromos, “The Human Rights Condition of the Rum Orthodox.”
45 See the daily Milliyet, July 6, 2012.
46 See the daily Radikal, July 5, 2012.
47 Hunault Report, op. cit.
48 For an analysis of Turkish neo-nationalism, see Türkmen, “La montée du nationalisme en Turquie:continuité et changement.”
49 For further information and analysis on the Mavi Marmara affair, see U. N. Human Rights Council, Report of the international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance A/HRC/15/21, September 27, 2010; Kraska, “Rule Selection in the Case of Israel's Naval Blocade of Gaza”; Guilfoyle, “The Mavi Marmara Incident and Blockade in Armed Conflict.”
50 Ömer Çelik's declaration during his official visit to Russia, quoted in the daily Sabah, March 17, 2013.
51 Ulusoy, “The Changing Challenge of Europeanization.”
52 Ibid., 364.
53 Though being a “member of the majority,” Emre Öktem, the co-author of the present article, took part in the preparation of this document and accompanied the Patriarch to the Parliament as a legal adviser.
54 See Hürriyet, February 21, 2012, Radikal, February 21; Nazlı Ilıcak, “Azınlık talepleri: Özgürlük, çoğulculuk, eşitlik” (Minority demands: freedom, pluralism, equality), Sabah, February 23, 2012.
Additional information
Füsun Türkmen is Associate Professor of International Relations at Galatasaray University in Istanbul, Turkey. She obtained her BA in Political Science at George Washington University in Washington DC, with honors and Phi Beta Kappa before completing her PhD at the Graduate Institute of International Studies in Geneva, Switzerland. Subsequently, she became an international civil servant at the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Since 1999, she has been teaching human rights and US foreign policy at Galatasaray University's Department of International Relations. She has published extensively (in Turkey, France, the USA and Great Britain) on human rights, US Foreign Policy, Turkish−US and Turkey−EU relations. As of 2011, she was nominated Director of the University's Center for Research and Documentation on Europe and in 2012 was elected chair of the Human Rights Research Committee of the International Political Science Association.
Emre Öktem is an Associate Professor of international law and the Head of the International Law Department at the Faculty of Law of Galatasaray University, Istanbul. He is the author of books entitled Freedom of Religion in International Law, Terrorism, Humanitarian Law and Human Rights, Piracy and Privateering-Historical and Legal Dimensions and Customary International Law, and articles on human rights, humanitarian law, minority rights, terrorism, international recognition, continuity and succession, and other fields of international law, as well as historical essays. He serves as an expert at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and advises Turkish courts, in the capacity of an expert witness, with respect to international law matters.