Epress.am News from Armenia
In an unprecedented move, a scholar of ethnic Armenian origin has been offered a post in Turkey’s Secretariat for European Union Affairs (ABGS). State Minister and Turkey’s chief European Union negotiator Egemen Bağış was reported to say that the Turkish government now welcomes non-Muslim minorities, local press reported.
Turkish-Armenian Leo Süren Halepli was notified of the offer of the position of EU specialist on Mar. 1 but has not yet responded with a decision, Today’s Zaman reports.
Bağış, speaking to reporters on Mar. 2, elaborated that Halepli had originally passed a written test and interview in 2009 to join the ABGS office in Turkey. However, offers could not be made at the time as another candidate, who took the same exam but did not pass, had lodged a court case in February of last year.
“The administrative court granted the application, which was then appealed by the ABGS office at the 11th Chamber of the Council of State, which then overturned the administrative court’s decision. As we no longer have any obstacles in front of us, we have been able to contact the 40 people who were supposed to work as EU specialists. We also contacted Leo Halepli, who has a very good resume in that regard, and offered him a position at the secretariat. He said he will consider the offer and respond shortly,” Bağış was quoted by the Yeni Şafak daily as saying.
“Halepli was not referred to us by the Armenian community or anyone else. He used his natural right as a citizen to apply for the position,” he said, as quoted by the same daily.
With Halepli’s potential appointment to the position, an unofficial policy of discrimination, which has kept members of minority groups out of state posts, has been brought into the spotlight. Although many people of Armenian descent were appointed to civil service positions in the era of the Ottoman Empire, there was a state policy in the Turkish Republic of not allowing non-Muslims to state posts in accordance with the 1926 Memurin Law.
The discriminatory law was changed in 1965 to state that a public official needed only to be a Turkish citizen. But intimidated by the state, non-Muslims have been reluctant to seek official state positions; some have taken advantage of the change to pursue work in state universities but not in civil servant positions.
Halepli, who was born in İstanbul in 1981 and graduated from Robert College in 1999, is currently a PhD candidate at the London School of Economics and is also a country manager for Turkey at the London-based consultancy firm Marker Global.