''ΓΕΝΟΚΤΟΝΙΑ ΑΡΜΕΝΙΩΝ'''': Armenian-Americans sue Turkey over etnically cleansed Armenian lands ...

Armenian-Americans sue Turkey over land

Three descendants of Armenians who lost their property in the collapse of the Ottoman Empire filed a lawsuit Wednesday against the Turkish government and two Turkish banks for restitution of more than $63 million for land that includes the strategic İncirlik Air Base used by the U.S. military.

The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles says ancestors of the litigants had their property confiscated in the alleged Armenian genocide. The families say they have deeds to the parcels.

Turkey firmly rejects claims that Armenian deaths between 1915 and 1919 constituted genocide, arguing instead that the deaths resulted from civil unrest that accompanied the collapse of the Ottoman Empire.

In the past, Turkey threatened to withhold access to the base when Congress considered recognizing the so-called genocide.

The lawsuit was filed by attorney Vartkes Yeghiayan, whose wife is one of the plaintiffs and claims to have documents showing that her ancestor, a wealthy Armenian landowner, was forced to flee Turkey with his family in 1915, leaving behind his home, farmland, store and insurance business.

The lawsuit was filed well after business hours in Ankara, the capital of Turkey, and efforts for immediate comment were not successful.

Yeghiayan has filed more than a dozen lawsuits related to this issue and won multimillion-dollar settlements against two major life insurance companies.

The current suit is different because it names the Turkish government and two of Turkey's largest and oldest banks rather than privately held corporations. Banks named in the suit are the Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey and T.C. Ziraat Bankası.

The lawsuit involves about 122.5 acres of property located in Turkey's Adana province with an estimated value of $63.9 million.

Attorney Michael Bazyler, a legal expert on genocide litigation and a professor at Chapman University, said the way was cleared for the lawsuit last week when the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed itself and said the heirs of Armenians killed in the Turkish Ottoman Empire can seek payment from companies that sold life insurance to their relatives.

The 44-page lawsuit sets out facts of how the properties were seized and how the ancestors of the litigants were "scattered throughout the world as refugees."

"During and after World War I, the families of each of the plaintiffs were forced to flee the Ottoman Turkish Empire – modern-day Turkey – leaving behind murdered family members and all of their movable and immovable property," the lawsuit says.

Explaining the nearly century-long delay in filing suit, it says, "It was impossible for plaintiffs' predecessors to seek compensation for their stolen property or focus on anything but rebuilding their lives."

The lawsuit said Turkey profited from the land, renting the air base to the U.S. for use as a vital hub supporting the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and humanitarian missions throughout Europe, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Meanwhile, Armenians in Los Angeles will campaign against Kobe Bryant’s sponsorship deal with Turkish Airlines and are urging him to drop it, the western U.S. chapter of the Armenian Youth Federation said.

Turkish Airlines, or THY, announced that it signed Bryant, a guard for basketball’s Los Angeles Lakers, to be a “global brand ambassador” on Tuesday as it seeks to publicize the start of direct flights from Istanbul to Los Angeles.

Armenian activists demand that the United States recognize the early 20th century killings of Armenians in Turkey as genocide.

California has 600,000 to 700,000 Armenian-Americans, “with the majority being in Southern California,” Aram Hamparian, executive director of the Armenian National Committee of America, said in a telephone interview.

“That includes a lot of Lakers fans, and until now, a lot of Kobe fans as well,” he said.

Los Angeles-born Armenian-American socialite and reality television star Kim Kardashian urged her more than 5.5 million followers on Twitter earlier this week to call on U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi to schedule a vote on House Resolution 252, which would recognize the Armenian deaths as genocide.

Bryant’s teammate Lamar Odom is married to Kardashian’s sister Khloe. The couple visited Istanbul earlier this year while Odom played for the gold medal-winning U.S. team at the 2010 FIBA world championships hosted by Turkey. Bryant was not part of the U.S. team. The Turkish squad finished second.

“Armenian-Americans hope that Kobe would balance what clearly looks to be a profitable business deal with a strong moral statement against Turkey’s violations of human rights, including, of course, its ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide,” the Armenian Youth Federation said in a statement on its website.

Bryant should drop the endorsement or back the resolution, Hamparian said. “This is not simply a private firm,” he said. “This is a firm that’s majority owned by the Turkish government.”

Thursday, December 16, 2010

LOS ANGELES / ISTANBUL 

Compiled from AP and Bloomberg reports by Daily News staff

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