ISTANBUL. – The Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) presented a special report devoted to Armenians in Turkey.

TESEV’s report, entitled “Listening to Turkey’s Armenians: Questions, Demands and Solution Proposals,” recommends that the Turkish state provide assistance in the publication of textbooks for Armenian schools, the teachers’ salaries be raised through state funding, Armenian language and literature departments be established in Turkey’s universities, and conditions be established for Armenian-language radio and theaters, Turkey’s Milliyet daily writes.        

The report also requires that constitutional equality be guaranteed for all ethnic groups in Turkey, and thus the article on “insulting Turkishness” also include other ethnic and religious minorities. The report also demands that clergy be trained at Istanbul’s Surp Khach (Holy Cross) Armenian seminary.    

“Considering the Lausanne Treaty, the [Turkish] state must not allow the assimilation of Armenian identity and culture. There must be legislative regulations to make teaching children from Armenia their mother tongue meet UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The textbooks must be rid of expressions sowing enmity and hatred against Armenians. Restored churches must be returned to the Armenian Patriarchate in Istanbul, and liturgy must be allowed to be held in those churches,” TESEV’s report states.   

In the report’s section on Armenian-Turkish relations, it is noted that opening of the borders between Armenia and Turkey and the implementation of the protocols would contribute to the normalization of relations between both countries. “The concept of ‘zero problems with neighbors’ must be implemented, without concentrating on the Karabakh and Genocide problem,” the report says, and it also demands that the real culprits behind Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink’s murder be exposed and to punish all public servants who are guilty.