Mr. Riddle to Mr. Sherman.
Constantinople, July 5, 1897. (Received July 24.)
Sir: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your instruction No. 1460 of May 26. The “special law” to govern the holding of real estate in Turkey by subjects of Ottoman birth who have changed their nationality, referred to in Article 1 of the legislative enactments printed on page 826 of the volume of “Treaties and Conventions between the United States and other Powers,” edited in in 1889, has not yet been enacted. Subjects of Ottoman birth who have changed their nationality before 1869, or who have obtained the Imperial sanction to a change made since that year, are considered as foreigners and are subject to the provisions of Article 1 referred to above, while subjects of Ottoman birth who have changed their nationality since 1869 without the Imperial sanction are still at law Ottoman subjects and their naturalization is null and void. There is a provision of law by which persons of this latter class may have pronounced against them the loss of Ottoman citizenship entailing the forfeiture of their real property. (Article 6 of the “Loi sur la Nationalité Ottomane” of the 19th January, 1869, and Article 111, with note of the Code de la Propriete Fonciere in the “Legislation Ottoinane” annotated by Aristarchi Bey). This provision of law has, however, never been put into practice by the Ottoman Government.
It would seem that the large class of former Ottoman subjects who have acquired American citizenship since 1869 without the Imperial sanction, and who subsequently return for a longer or shorter sojourn in the land of their origin, must in a majority of cases profit by a dual nationality. As stated in No. 881 of May 23, 1896, all such persons who are land owners in Turkey are unable to accomplish any act affecting their real property before a Turkish tribunal or bureau unless they accept the designation of “Ottoman subject.” It may therefore be stated as generally true that the naturalized American of Armenian origin who returns to this country and acquires fresh holdings of real property or disposes, of property of which he is already possessed performs these acts in the guise of a subject of the Sultan.
I have, etc.,