Experts skeptical about new Armenian-American lawsuit against Turkey

Armenian-Americans file a federal lawsuit against two Turkish state-owned banks, T.C. Ziraat Bankası and the Central Bank of Turkey, but some international law experts say a local court cannot sue a state in this way. Others say there is a possibility for the court to accept the case.

The federal lawsuit filed by Armenian-American lawyers against the Turkish government and two Turkish state-owned banks has been questioned by international law experts who say a state cannot be sued in a local court.

“This lawsuit is just for keeping the Armenian allegations on the agenda for years; they will not win the case. It’s in preparation for an anniversary in 2015, since they are seeking a class-action status for the suit that would not end for at least five years,” international-law expert İbrahim Kaya told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Friday.

The suit filed Thursday seeks compensation for the heirs of Armenians whose property was allegedly seized as they were driven from the Ottoman Empire nearly a century ago. The two banks named in the lawsuit are the Central Bank of Turkey and T.C. Ziraat Bankası, the largest and oldest Turkish bank, with origins dating back to the 1860s.

Kaya is among the legal experts who have argued that a local court cannot sue a state under international law, saying the court should not accept the case on these grounds. Others, however, have said the court could accept the lawsuit if it deems the banks to be less than full state institutions.

“Since Ziraat Bankası and the Central Bank are state-owned banks, hypothetically they could only be sued in Turkish courts,” Kaya said. “But the Treaty of Lausanne and the Kars Agreements set a period to apply for these sorts of demands and it has already expired.”

The Treaty of Lausanne was the 1923 agreement that paved the way for the creation of the modern Turkish Republic; the Treaty of Kars was signed in 1921 between the Turkish Parliament and representatives of Soviet Armenia, Soviet Azerbaijan and Soviet Georgia.

Articles 30, 31 and 32 of the Treaty of Lausanne granted the right for people who had lived outside Turkish borders to return and obtain Turkish citizenship, Kaya said, adding that “another article [allowed] for the amnesty of those who had battled against Turkish forces in French uniforms.”

The treaty, he said, set a two-year period for property holdings to be returned to these people, which means that Armenians can no longer file a lawsuit in Turkey.

The new lawsuit was filed on behalf of plaintiffs Garbis Davouyan of Los Angeles and Hrayr Turabian of Queens, New York, alleging a breach of statutory trust, unjust enrichment, human-rights violations and violations of international law. The case seeks compensation for land, buildings and businesses allegedly seized from Armenians, along with bank deposits and property, including priceless religious and other artifacts, some of which are now housed in museums in Turkey.

The lawsuit claims the government of Turkey agreed to administer the property, collecting rents and sale proceeds from the seized assets and depositing the receipts in trust accounts until the property could be restored to owners.

Instead, the government has “withheld the property and any income derived from such property,” the lawsuit said.

Professor Hüseyin Pazarcı said the American court might accept the suit, even though he believed it should not accept such a case against a state. The court will evaluate Turkish law to determine if the banks are full state organs, and could decide that the banks do not substitute for the state itself even if they are public institutions, Pazarcı said.

The lawsuit also claims more than a million Armenians were killed in forced marches, concentration camps and massacres “perpetrated, assisted and condoned” by Turkish officials and armed forces.

Turkey fiercely rejects listing these deaths as “genocide,” saying thousands died on both sides in what amounted to civil strife. The U.S. government does not recognize the World War I-era killings as genocide.

In 2000, the California Legislature recognized the deaths in 1915 as genocide and allowed heirs to seek payment on life-insurance policies of dead relatives. The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals later invalidated the law. Geragos has appealed that ruling.


/Hurriyet Daily News/