‘Little Caliph’ Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his Islamist AK Party government want Turkey to join the EU, but clearly still intend to play by their Islamic supremacist rules:Read the rest here.
Unbelievable but true: the headquarters of the Secretariat for the entry of Turkey into the European Union is a building confiscated from the Orthodox Christian community in the 90s. The building is located in Istanbul, in the well-known area of Ortakoy, under the first bridge over the Bosphorus.
Before the seizure, the building was used as a primary school for children of the minority Orthodox in Ortakoy. Here, once lived a thriving Orthodox community, now non-existent because of past purges against minorities, executed by the “secular” Turkish State.
Hat tip to Damian Thompson
8 comments:
The only problem with this item is that it's not true. The Turkish government is located in Ankara, which is where the secretariat in question is. Not to say that there's not a confiscated building in Ortakoy that houses a Turkish governmental office, but that doesn't generate the political irony the author of this item seems to be hoping for.
Do you have a source that refutes the above article? The fact that Turkey's capital is in Ankara is neither here nor there. Ours is in Washington, but we have government buildings all over the country. If you can provide some sort of reputable source that refutes the above story I will happily post it.
In ICXC
John
I've been inside the Turkish EU Secretariat office in Ankara. Will you trust me?
As for the fact the USG buildings are located "all over the country," no cabinet-level office (which Turkey's EU Secretariat is) is headquartered outside the immediate Washington, D.C., area.
Well, since I don't know who you are (you have not even signed a first name to your comments) and you seem unable to present any corrobarating evidence, I will leave your coments to stand on their own. If you find some form of evidence that contradicts the linked story I wuill happily post it. In the meantime readers are free to read your comments and draw their own conclusions.
In ICXC
John
Please look at the picture at http://www.abgs.gov.tr/index.php?p=44&l=2. Does that look like the building in Ortakoy/Istanbul you're citing (also without corroboration/evidence, I might note)? In the URL, "abgs" stands for "Avrupa Birligi Genel Sekreterligi," the Turkish equivalent of "European Union General Secretariat."
As for my name, that's irrelevant (unless you're pushing an ad hominem argument). Suffice it to say my last name does not end in "oglu" and my parents were born in the United States, a country I served 30 years as a Foreign Service officer.
Previewing this comment, I note the end of the URL may not be clear. It's four/four/ampersand/one/equal sign/two.
Two weeks have passed since my last comment, and there's been no response to it. I take this to mean that the original poster cannot refute my point: The building in question is not what the post alleged it to be. There's a principle in law: If a witness is found to have lied about anything, the entire testimony may be thrown out. Honesty would seem to require correcting or eliminating the original post.
Anonymous,
Your previous comments do not disprove the article cited in the origional post although they do present a reasonable alternative position. For this reason I have left your comments for the reader to review on their own. I think that is sufficient pending concrete evidence to the contrary.
Yours in ICXC
John
I've provided a link to a photograph of the actual building housing the Turkish government's HQ for relations with the EU and pointed out that government offices are HQ'd in a country's capital city. Have you any countervailing "concrete evidence" refuting those points?
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