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Södertälje (Sweden)
To: MPs of the EU Parliament and party
groups
Turkey's EU-candidature - destroyed cultural heritage
We, the undersigned group, had the pleasure of meeting you between the 13th and 17th of March 2000 to inform you of our view on the political and general situation of the Assyrian/Syriac people in Turkey. We took pleasure in the friendly, interested and initiated treatment from you. During the conversations some factors came up that you as well as EU parliament members and members of the Turkey delegation put special emphasis on. We noted your wish for more concrete information about the historical places of our people that are under threat or destroyed and where our people's properties have been confiscated by the Turkish state. As we mentioned to you during our visit, the Turkish state does not give any permission to necessary reparations and renovations - not even to that of thousand-year-old places and shrines. Needless to say that the construction of new churches is unthinkable. This fact is a clear manifestation of the Turkish state's struggle to eliminate our cultural and religious heritage. The EU candidature has not been able to make the Turkish state stop this policy. Our hope is that the EU will demand from Turkey to cease that policy as soon as possible before all these places will be razed to the ground. On the basis of recent information we are now able to provide you with the following list of threatened or destroyed churches and monasteries chiefly from the Tur Abdin region:
The before mentioned represents only a selection of the churches and monasteries in the Tur Abdin region. All the above churches and monasteries are under threat of by destruction if no one will come to their protection. That way Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilisation, will be erased through the present and unimpeded Turkish policy. For further illustration of this development we give the following list of villages and properties that have been confiscated and destroyed by the Turkish state since 1980. Midyat-district Nusaybin(Nsibin)-district Dargecit-district (Kfar-Boran/Kerboran) Idil(`Azakh/Beth-Zabday)--district Cizre-district (Gziro/Gzira/Gazarta) Silopi(Silopia)-district Gercus(Kafr-Gawze)-district All above villages have been destroyed and the properties there have been confiscated by the Turkish state. The population of these Christian villages has to no extent been involved in the ongoing conflicts in Turkey. But the conflicts created a favourable opportunity for the Turkish state to destroy the places and to complete the ethnical cleansing from the local Assyrian/Syriac population. The following Assyrians/Syriacs from the
village of Sare/Gawayto have lost their property due to these
infringements and have also announced that they will take legal
actions against the Turkish state. Germany: Hanno Yildiz, Lahdo Altun, Demir Andraus, Barsom Ok, Yusuf Aransay, Cebrael Ersoy, Sehin Malke, Eksik Gevriye, Turan Aziz, Turan Dibo, Saliba Ok, Aslan Samy, Demirel Ibrahim, Kaplan Semun and Eyyi Hanna. Netherlands: Semun Sonmezer, Gecer Yusuf, Isa Gergin and Dogan Gevriye. Sweden: Semun Celik This is a selection only from the village of Sare/Gawayto. The population from the other destroyed villages indicated above have the same legitimate claims. Today they almost exclusively live in EU countries. The monasteries Deir ez Za`faran (Dayro d-Kurkmo) and Mor Gabriel in the Mardin district are under incessant threat of being shut down by the Turkish state. Only international demands have prevented so far the Turkish state from doing so. One bishop of the region, Samuel Aktas, will gladly be at the disposal of the EU parliament for meetings and any information concerning the threatened cultural heritage and confiscated property in Tur Abdin. Beyond the above concrete examples, a great many monasteries and churches were shut down, destroyed or converted into mosques in the same way in other districts such as Siirt, Bitlis, Van, Hakkari, Urfa (=Urhoy), Adiyaman (=Hasn-Mansur/Perin) and Diyarbakir (=Omid). We hope that the lists given above will be of help to the EU parliament and the Turkey delegation in the continued negotiations with Turkey and that they will be able to contribute to enabling the EU to exert pressure on Turkey for all necessary changes. This includes also our hope that the EU will be able to contribute to saving that part of the cultural heritage of our people that has not be destroyed yet. This issue is of vital importance to millions of Assyrians/Syriacs of whom 300,000 are residing within the EU today. Looking forward to that the Turkey-delegation of the EU Parliament will raise these facts in the forthcoming negotiations with Turkish representatives as well as to your answer we remain With kindest regards, ACSU - Assyrian-Chaldean-Syriac Union Ozcan Kaldoyo Olle Wiberg Yasemin Onder Orhan DeBasso George Aryo Fikri Aygur Attiya Xamry |