Mr. Terrell to Mr.
Gresham.
Legation of
the United States,
Constantinople, November 18, 1893.
(Received December 9.)
No. 107.]
Sir: I have the honor to inform you of the action
recently agreed upon at the Porte affecting Armenians who return to the
Ottoman Empire from the United States. They had surrendered them when I
demanded it, but continued to arrest, and for those arrested in the
interior, remote from a consul or a consular agent, the prospect was gloomy.
I found that the Porte was inflexible in the belief that they had the right
to exclude returning Armenians who had emigrated without permission; though
they would be surrendered on my demand, the arrests would continue, and this
continued attrition must soon impair my capacity to exert influence for
other interests.
Acting under your telegram of October 27, I made a virtue of necessity in a
conversation with his excelleney Said Pasha, the substance of which is
inclosed and in which it was agreed that arrests should cease of the class
of men above referred to, and that they should, on returning to Turkey, be
permitted to laud and be allowed a limited stay before returning. Also, that
naturalized citizens of the United States, natives of the Ottoman Empire,
should only be restrained of their freedom when they refused to depart on
returning here hereafter, and then not as a punishment, but to secure their
departure.
I think you will agree with me after reading the inclosure that I reconciled
in a proper manner the concession agreed on with my demand successfully made
at first for the unconditional release of naturalized citizens of the United
States.
Unless some sort of notice can be given in the United States to the thousands
of former subjects of Turkey now there, many will still return and suffer in
the dungeons of the interior after eluding the vigilance of the frontier
police.
I have, etc.,
[Page 704]
[Inclosure in No. 107.]
Memorandum of conversations with his excellency Said
Pasha, minister of foreign affairs, and with his highness Djvad,
grand vizier.
On the afternoon of November 14 I visited the Porte and said to his
excellency Said Pasha: “I have complained here so often that I take
pleasure in proposing to your excellency what I think will be agreeable.
Something must be done to prevent this continued attrition here over
Armenians naturalized since 1869, who are now returning. I have demanded
their release from prison only because your officers have disregarded
their passports. You claim them as subjects—we claim them as citizens. I
will (on account of your suspicion that they may be the emissaries of
revolutionists) concede your right to exclude them, if you will allow
them to remain a limited time—say ten days—without imprisonment. Let
them be taken before a consul or consular agent of the United States and
there notified by your officers that they must leave in a time
specified. Should they fail to depart from your territory, then restrain
their freedom, not as a punishment, but to secure their departure.”
His excellency Said Pasha, in answer, said: “I am greatly pleased at the
proposal made by your excellency. This is, indeed, good news, and will
prevent all future trouble.” Much more to the same effect he said, and
after telling him that I would embody what I had proposed in a
memorandum, and send it to him, expecting him to state his approval, and
expressly to restrict the claim of right to exclude to native subjects
naturalized since 1869, I visited the grand vizier.
I said, in substance, to his Highness Djvad, grand vizier, what I have
above stated as my declaration to Said Pasha. He answered:
“I am glad to hear you propose that. It was impossible for us to consent
that those Armenians should return. Your statement gives an additional
evidence of the friendly disposition of your Government. A few bad men
have made all this trouble in Asia Minor. Only a short time ago the
Armenian hamals you see here would leave their
wives and children in the care of their Mohammedan neighbors when they
came to Constantinople to seek work; now all is changed. Sedition has
started enmity between the races.”
I also called his attention to the fact that this concession of the right
to exclude men bearing our passports was limited to those who were
natives of the Ottoman Empire who had recently returned or who might
hereafter come.
On the 15th I sent to the Porte a brief statement of the conditions on
which the right to exclude our naturalized citizens would be limited,
for inspection—not signed, and to be brought back by my dragoman. It has
not been answered, as I desired, by being approved and incorporated in a
note.
