Religious Affairs head meets Armenian cleric

ANKARA – Anatolia News Agency
The head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, Mehmet Görmez, met with the acting patriarch of Turkish Armenian community yesterday.

Görmez said he was honored to welcome Archbishop Aram Ateşyan as a guest of the directorate. It is not right to classify people as either minorities or majorities, he said. “We are the children of a common civilization, history and culture. Identities cannot be defined with numbers.”

Ateşyan said the word “minority” should be put to one side and added that Turkish and Armenian people had lived together in shared territories for centuries as members of two different religions and communities.

“Even though some circles have caused disturbance in this country, it is time that we left that aside and returned to the good old days,” he said. “There are no Armenian, Greek Orthodox or Syriac people, only children of the same soil,” Ateşyan said in reference to who is a “minority” in Turkey

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