“It was natural that Garegin Bekchyan will be considered as a preferred candidate, with his experience, skills and relatively neutral position,” said Turkologist Ruben Melkonyan at the press conference at the hall of the “Armenpress” news agency. In his words, a very interesting scene turned out after the election of the locum tenens. The locum tenens can be elected only by priests, and 23 out of 34 voters voted for Garegin Bekchyan, “Aram Ateshyan received 11 votes, by having big administrative leverages and using them. The elections proved that even the clergymen and priests who are under the influence and leadership of Aram Ateshyan spoke against him.”
Speaking about further steps, he said that currently, the only legitimate representative of the Armenian community of Istanbul is the elected locum tenens Archbishop Garegin Bekchyan who should not take into account any notice of the deputy governor as it is contrary to ecclesiastical norms. “It is necessary to move the situation to the next phase and move towards the organization of elections. What happens now leads to certain slowness. Next week, they will meet with the Istanbul governor to discuss this issue. But the discussion is already wrong because they cannot discuss a problem with a structure that has no right to intervene in this issue. This slowness and indecisiveness will play a negative role.”
Roza HAKOBYAN
Read also
