Laki Vingas (2nd L), the organizer of the meeting, together with minority foundation leaders speak to press after the meeting and share their notes. DAILY NEWS photo, Emrah GÜREL
Syriacs make their mark in historic meet with Gül by Vercihan Ziflioğlu. ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News, July 30, 2012.
The details regarding a recent meeting in which Turkish President Abdullah Gül hosted the leaders of eight of Turkey’s minority foundations on July 27 in Istanbul have been revealed. Accordingly, the three participant Syriac foundations made their mark at the meeting, especially regarding the ongoing conflict regarding the Mor Gabriel (Deyrulumur) Monastery case and the relocation of the Syriac Church’s patriarchate from Beirut to Turkey.
During the meeting, which was planned to be 45 minutes but took about 1.5 hours, Gül paid great attention to the problems communicated but didn’t make any remarks about any problem, the Hürriyet Daily News has learned.
The Syriac foundations also demanded the return of their historical patriarchate building in Mardin, which has been turned into a museum.
In previous months, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held a series of negotiations with Syriacs on the topic and proposed bringing Beirut’s Catholic and Damascus’ Syriac Kadim patriarchates to Turkey. Besides the patriarchate issue, Syriac’s Kadim Church foundation put the historical Mor Gabriel Monastery in Mardin on the agenda, which has been the subject of a conflict between Turkey and the Mor Gabriel Foundation.
Other minority leaders also brought education problems in minority schools and expectations regarding citizenship rights to the table.
Foundations Law
Yedikule Surp Pırgiç Armenian Hospital Foundation President Bedros Şirinoğlu also joined the meeting to represent Armenian foundations.
“We have already been speaking about our problems generally with Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınç. So, instead of repeating our problems to the president, we wanted to express our regards for his support of the Minority Foundations Law,” he said.
Laki Vingas, a council member of the Foundations Directorate General and the organizer of the meeting, told the Daily News the meeting had been held under very good conditions, the leaders of minorities expressed their gratitude for the Foundations Law and return of properties and they spoke about education problems.
In addition to Şirinoğlu and Vingas, Syriac Catholic leader Zeki Başdemir, Armenian Catholic Foundation leader Bernard Sarıbay, Syriac Kadim Foundation representative Sait Susin, Greek Foundation representative Andon Parisyoanos, Jewish Community representative Sami Herman and Bulgarian community representative Vasil Liyaze attended the meeting.
Assyria
\ã-'sir-é-ä\ n (1998)
1: an ancient empire of Ashur
2: a democratic state in Bet-Nahren, Assyria (northern
Iraq, northwestern Iran, southeastern Turkey and eastern Syria.)
3:
a democratic state that fosters the social and political rights to all of
its inhabitants irrespective of their religion, race, or gender
4: a democratic state that believes in the freedom of
religion, conscience, language, education and culture in faithfulness to the
principles of the United Nations Charter —
Atour synonym
Ethnicity, Religion, Language
»
Israeli, Jewish, Hebrew
»
Assyrian, Christian, Aramaic
»
Saudi Arabian, Muslim, Arabic
Assyrian
\ã-'sir-é-an\ adj or n (1998)
1: descendants of the ancient empire of Ashur
2: the Assyrians, although representing but one single
nation as the direct heirs of the ancient Assyrian Empire, are now
doctrinally divided, inter sese, into five principle
ecclesiastically designated religious sects with their corresponding
hierarchies and distinct church governments, namely, Church of the
East, Chaldean, Maronite, Syriac Orthodox and Syriac Catholic.
These formal divisions had their origin in the 5th century of the
Christian Era. No one can coherently understand the Assyrians
as a whole until he can distinguish that which is religion or church
from that which is nation -- a matter which is particularly
difficult for the people from the western world to understand; for
in the East, by force of circumstances beyond their control,
religion has been made, from time immemorial, virtually into a
criterion of nationality.
3:
the Assyrians have been referred to as Aramaean, Aramaye, Ashuraya,
Ashureen, Ashuri, Ashuroyo, Assyrio-Chaldean, Aturaya, Chaldean,
Chaldo, ChaldoAssyrian, ChaldoAssyrio, Jacobite, Kaldany, Kaldu,
Kasdu, Malabar, Maronite, Maronaya, Nestorian, Nestornaye, Oromoye,
Suraya, Syriac, Syrian, Syriani, Suryoye, Suryoyo and Telkeffee. —
Assyrianism verb
Aramaic
\ar-é-'máik\
n (1998)
1: a Semitic language which became the lingua franca of
the Middle East during the ancient Assyrian empire.
2: has been referred to as Neo-Aramaic, Neo-Syriac, Classical
Syriac, Syriac, Suryoyo, Swadaya and Turoyo.
