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ISTANBUL (Reuters) -One of the world's oldest
functioning Christian monasteries has won a legal battle
to have land it had owned for centuries restored to it,
after a Turkish court ruled on Friday it could not be
claimed by the state.
The dispute over the boundaries of Mor Gabriel, a fifth
century Syriac Orthodox monastery in eastern Turkey, had
raised concerns over freedom of religion and human
rights for nonMuslim minorities in Turkey, a
predominantly Muslim country and European Union
aspirant.
In a statement, the Syriac Universal Alliance (SUA), a
leading Syriac group based in Sweden, said a Turkish
court in Midyat had reversed an initial decision by the
land registry court to grant villages some 110 hectares
(272 acres) of monastery land.
But it added another three cases relating to the
monastery's former land remained open, two of which had
been postponed.
The row began when Turkish government land officials
redrew the boundaries around Mor Gabriel and the
surrounding villages in 2008 to update a national land
registry.
The Syriac Orthodox monks said the new boundaries turned
over to the villages large plots of monastery land and
some designated as public forest.
The case became a rallying cry for Christian church
groups across Europe, and had been postponed several
times.
Syriacs are one of the oldest communities in Turkey and
still speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ. But
they are not officially designated a minority in Turkey
like the Greeks or Armenians, so have no special
protection under the 1923 Treaty of Lausanne's
provisions for non Muslim minorities.
The ruling AK Party government has said it has expanded
the rights of minorities. But the EU and U.S. President
Barack Obama, during a trip to Turkey in April, have
urged Ankara to do more to promote religious freedom.
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