Mr. Olney to Mr. Terrell.
Washington, October 8, 1895.
Sir: Your No. 619, of September 9, in regard to the case of Mardiros Mooradian has been received.
The telegram sent to you on the 10th ultimo will have suggested the doubt here entertained as to the extent to which the Imperial Government invited you to go in deporting Mooradian, and it is not at all clear how the foreign minister could have expected your compliance with his imposed condition that you should see to the execution of the order requiring the immediate departure of Mooradian from Turkish soil and not permit him to go at large while in Constantinople. Forcible [Page 1304] detention by you with a view to the execution of the Turkish sentence of deportation would have been, of course, entirely inadmissible, inasmuch as it can be no part of your official functions to execute the internal decrees of Turkey. Your telegraphic statement that Mooradian departed “joyfully” indicates that in sending him with your cavass to the steamer leaving Constantinople on the 9th for Athens you merely sought to satisfy yourself of his actual voluntary departure, and applied no constraint to him.
One other point deserves attention. In your note to Turkhan Pasha, of September 7, you say:
If he (Mooradian) had been arrested while engaged in armed resistance to the authority of Turkey, I would concede jurisdiction of defense to a Turkish court and content myself with demanding an impartial trial.
This concession on your part does not seem warranted by the statutes of the United States in regard to consular jurisdiction, for they authorize the consuls of the United States in Turkey to take cognizance of insurrection or rebellion against the Government (sees. 4102, 4109, 4125, Rev. Stat.); and the claim of this Government to exercise through its ministers and consuls extraterritorial jurisdiction over citizens of the United States in the Turkish dominions, under article 4 of the treaty of 1830, is not to be lost sight of. The offense of armed resistance to the authority of Turkey is plainly comprised in the terms “insurrection or rebellion” used in the statute. As was said in my telegram of the 26th ultimo, you should offer to try any cases of such offenses committed in Turkey. If the Turkish Government refuses to permit such trial, that is another question.
I am, etc.,