US signs memorandum: Turkey gains rights to Christian heritage in region, ANCA reports

In its final hours the Trump administration signed a bilateral memorandum of understanding between the United States and Turkey, giving Turkey legal rights to the vast religious and cultural heritage of the region’s indigenous peoples and other minorities, the Armenian National Committee of America (ANCA) reported.

The agreement was concluded in response to a request from the Turkish government over a year ago.

The move was protested by Hellenic American Leadership Council, and In Defense of Christians (IDC) and a host of cultural rights and museum groups including the Association of Art Museum Directors (AAMD), the Committee for Cultural Policy (CCP), the Global Heritage Alliance (GHA), and the International Association of Professional Numismatists (IAPN), among others.

“The Trump Administration – in its final hours – gifted Turkey the legal rights to claim the vast religious and cultural heritage of the region’s indigenous peoples and minority populations – among them Armenians, Greeks, Assyrians, Chaldeans, Syriacs, Arameans, Maronites, Jews and Kurds,” said ANCA Executive Director Aram Hamparian. “This reckless and irresponsible move was done over the protests of the ANCA, the Hellenic American Leadership Council, and In Defense of Christians by an Administration well aware that Turkey has openly, unapologetically, and systematically spent the past two centuries destroying minorities, desecrating their holy sites, and erasing even their memory from the landscape of their ancient, indigenous homelands.”

In turn, IDC President Toufic Baaklini noted that this Memorandum of Understanding is a shameful sign of American approval of the destruction of Christian cultural heritage in Turkey.

Although the final text of the memorandum has not been made public, Turkey’s request calls for restrictions on the import of virtually all works of art from prehistoric to modern times to the United States, ANCA notes.