YEREVAN. – H.Res.306, which passed at the US House of Representatives, is a small step in the positive direction, Istanbul’s Agos Armenian weekly’s Armenian section editor Sarkis Seropyan told Armenian News-NEWS.am, commenting on the religious freedom measure, which calls upon Turkey to return the Christian church properties.   

In Seropyan’s words, this concerns the properties that were seized from the churches after the 1970s, and which must be either returned or compensated.

“We are talking about church properties in the cities, and not about all churches in Anatolia. A petition must be made in order for them to be returned, and, if they find that they were unlawfully taken, only then will the homes [and] estates belonging to the churches be returned. And if other buildings are constructed in their place, they must be compensated,” Sarkis Seropyan noted.