Thursday, November 23, 2017

Return of Mor Gabriel monastery "imminent"

ASSYRIAN (MODERN SYRIAC) WATCH: Turkey’s Syriac community welcomes monastery’s return. Title deed of Mor Gabriel Monastery transferred to Turkish Treasury in 2014 (Anadolu Agency, Halil Ibrahim Sincar, Nurten Aslan and Selahattin Erol).
MARDIN, Turkey

Turkey’s Syriac minority in Mardin province welcomes the imminent return of legal ownership of the Mor Gabriel Monastery to their community, a monastery official told Anadolu Agency on Wednesday.

Deputy Prime Minister Hakan Cavusoglu said earlier that an Assyrian Christian cemetery belonging to the monastery had been mistakenly transferred to the state treasury.

"We are now transferring this cemetery back to its owners," Cavusoglu added.

[...]
This is prospectively good news. I will call it actual good news as soon as there is word that the return has been fully effected. I appreciate the efforts of the Turkish Government to get this one right. I trust that they will be similarly attentive to the related property issues that remain to be resolved. The world is watching.

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