The leaders of Turkey’s eight minority foundations have been hosted at the presidential summer compound for the first timein the history of the Turkish Republic, Hurriyet Daily News reports.
The strongest cases at the meeting would belong to three Syriac foundations, according to information Hürriyet Daily News gathered from Syriac Catholic Foundation head Zeki Başdemir and Midyat Syriac Mor Gabriel Monastery Foundation head Kuryakos Ergün before the meeting.
The Catholic Syriac group planned to put forward its readiness to relocate the Church’s Patriarchate in Beirut to Turkey, and demand the return of their historical Patriarchate building in Mardin, which has been turned into a museum. In previous months, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu held a series of negotiations with Syriacs on the topic, and proposed bringing the Beirut and Damascus Patriarchates to Turkey.
