Turkish Extremists Are
Targeting Christian Minority Leaders
Athens, 15.02.2007 - The Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople Bartholomew became number one target for Turkish nationalists, reports Kathimerini newspaper quoting one of the U.S. strategic centers. The same information is furnished by Milliyet Turkish newspaper in the article titled “Patriarchs under threat of death.” The NTV says that Istanbul's Armenian Patriarch Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan’s life is also in danger, reports Yerkir online.
According to
Kathimerini, Western diplomats, who are very carefully watching what is
happening in Turkey at this time, are intensely concerned about the
security for Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew and also for the
Armenian Patriarch of Istanbul Mesrob II Mutafyan. According to their
assessments, part of the Turkish deep state has turn self-determining over
the past two years and is operating beyond control. "These people,
most of whom are retired officers from the army and the security forces,
have in their mind a paranoid image of Turkey being partitioned. They
believe they are functioning under revolutionary conditions and that they
are constantly justified in giving order for assassinations,"
commented an experienced US analyst, who added, "It is clear that
there is a plan to assassinate the Representatives of various
minorities."
Already, in recent weeks, the Turkish security forces have received much
disquieting information regarding a possible assassination attempt against
the Armenian Patriarch, who outraged nationalist circles with his New
Year's speech, in which he dared to refer to the genocide of the
Armenians, which is traditionally a taboo subject in Turkey.
The Turkish
services have taken additional security measures for the Armenian
religious leader. Western sources, who are well informed on what is
happening in Turkey, consider that, despite all this, the number one
target for the nationalist circles is the Ecumenical Patriarch and the Phanar,
the administrative centre of the Ecumenical Patriarchate more
generally. "The hatred these circles harbor for the Patriarchate runs
very deep, indeed it is exacerbated by the importance the White House
attributes to the Phanar, as also the European governments do,"
commented a Western diplomat, adding "they are perfectly well aware
that an action against the Phanar would create enormous problems for
Turkey's international relations and possibly even for their aim."
Washington has on occasions, through informal channels, conveyed to Ankara
its concerns over security for the world leader of Christian
Orthodoxy and has asked that additional measures be taken for his
protection. US officials, who study carefully everything happening in
Turkey, express the opinion that the security forces are exceptionally
infiltrated by the "long arm" of the deep state, as was evident
by the murder of Armenian journalist Hrant Dink. "The foot
dragging by the intelligence gathering services in the Istanbul police and
also -- even more so -- the photo of policemen with the murderer amongst
them as a hero, show that there are obscure links," stress western
officials, who expressed their certainty that the Erdogan administration
has lost control.
The same officials pointed out that "when we talk of a threat against
the Patriarch, we are not referring to the Gray Wolves and their constant,
loud demonstrations against him. We are talking of paramilitary nuclei
which cunningly use young people as assassins. This is what happened with
Dink, the same with the Catholic priest Andoro in Trebizond. In order for
anyone to reach from the young assassin to the head, one must past through
three or four links, who are careful to eliminate any of their traces.
These are hard core, well organized gangs, covered up by high ranking
officers in the security services," Kathimerini reports.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is the world leader of Orthodox
Christians. His authority and prestige derives from the times of the
Eastern Roman Empire, whose capital was Constantinople, the New Rome, a
city founded by St. Constantine the Great, the first Roman Emperor to
allow the free worship of Christians, untill then persecuted by the Roman
state authorities. Archbishop Mesrob Mutafyan is one of the three major
Armenian patriarchs.
The Greek and Armenian Patriarchs were once the leaders of Turkey's thriving and populous Christian minorities of Greeks and Armenians respectively. But their number diminished to almost extinction as a result of a deliberate Ottoman and Turkish state policy to wip out Turkey of its Christian minorities. It has thus been estimated that in the years marking the collapse of the Ottoman empire and the emergence of the Turkish state more than 3.5 million Armenian, Greek and Assyrian Christians were massacred by the regimes of the Young Turks and of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) in what has been called the Christian Holocaust and seen as the predecessor to the Jewish Holocaust.
To this day Turkey ostensibly denies the genocide of its Christian minorities, despite calls from the European Union and the governements of France and Greece that the recognition of these genocides is an indispensable moral condition for Turkish eventual accession to the EU club.
