TURKEY. holds to the generally abandoned doctrine of perpetual allegiance. Turkey can no more expect us to renounce our fundamental doctrine in respect of our citizens within her territory than she could expect to enforce her doctrines within the United States, by preventing the naturalization here of a Turk who emigrates without the authorization of an imperial irade. As to the question of preventing the influx into the United States of aliens dangerous to the peace of the country, we must look to other means of excluding them than by abandoning the doctrine of the right of expatriation. I am, etc., W. Q. GRESHAM. CASES OF MR. AIVAZIAN AND MRS. TOPRAHANIAN. Mr. Gresham to Mr. Terrell. No. 119.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, SIR: Your No. 1291 of 11th ultimo, and the copy therewith, have been received. It appears that Adam Aivazian, a naturalized American, is now in prison at Yozgad, on suspicion of conspiracy against the He states that he resided ten years in this Turkish Government. country, and about 1891-'92 went to Turkey on business, intending to return to America. The case seems an especially hard one, as this man appears to intend honestly to conserve his American status by closing up his interests in Turkey and settling in California for life. If there are charges against him, it would seem that he should be confronted with them and given a chance to make his defense. Prolonged imprisonment seems an unnecessary hardship, against which you can rightly protest. I am, etc., W. Q. GRESHAM. No. 169.] Mr. Terrell to Mr. Gresham. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Constantinople, January 27, 1894. (Received Feb. 14.) SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of your No. 119 of the 6th instant, regarding the case of Adam Aivazian, confined at Yozgad in prison. Considerations of policy have restrained me from prompt action in this case, as in that of the parties at Alexandretta, who, though naturalized and charged with no crime, are refused permission to return to their homes in the United States. ** * * I have been awaiting the slow action of the Porte, which would act favorably, but can not. The report to the grand vizier from Yozgad is that the man there is confined for assisting the escape of revolutionists, and has never claimed protection as an American citizen. That, I think, I understand; he is prevented by fear. If I can be furnished with a letter to the governor permitting my secretary to see the man I will send him to know the facts. FOREIGN RELATIONS. Unless my interview at the Porte is more satisfactory than I expect I will telegraph you to-morrow. vinces me that concessions, even when required by justice (as in the A careful study of the situation conexclusion of returning Armenians), are only followed by fresh exactions. I have, etc., A. W. TERRELL. No. 173.] Mr. Terrell to Mr. Gresham. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Constantinople, February 1, 1894. (Received Feb. 16.) SIR: I inclose a copy of my note to the Porte dated December 29, 1893, regarding the imprisonment at Yozgad of Atam Aivazian, in which I proposed to send a representative of the United States to Yozgad, and protested against the continued imprisonment of the man without trial. Please find also inclosed a copy of the Porte's answer to that note, written a mouth after its receipt, in which the man's claim of American citizenship is admitted to have been made by him. I inclose also my note to the Porte of yesterday (January 31), in which I stated that I had solicited a letter and teskeré, or traveling permit, for my secretary of legation to go to Yozgad and report to me regarding his right to my protection, and that finally, in obedience to a manifest duty, I had reported the facts to you for instructions. I have, etc., A. W. TERRELL. [Inclosure 1 in No. 173.] Mr. Terrell to the Sublime Porte. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, His Excellency Saïd Pacha was informed by the minister of the United States that Atam Aivazian, a naturalized American citizen, had for three months been confined at Yozgad in prison. This legation will be at all times ready to send a representative of the United States to attend upon the trial of the man, if he is accused of crime. presence in the Ottoman Empire is objectionable, this legation will If his oppose no objection to the action of the Government in requiring the man to go at once to the United States; but his continued confinement in prison without trial is protested against. [Inclosure 2 in No. 173.-Translation.] The Sublime Porte to Mr. Terrell. JANUARY 30, 1894. The ministry of foreign affairs has received the verbal note that the legation of the United States of America has kindly addressed to it on the 29th of December last, No. 14 bis, relating to the preventive detention of one Atam Aivazian. The governor-general of the vilayet of Angora, asked on the subject, remarks in replying that the aforesaid, accused of having facilitated the murderer of Kehyaian, was born in the village of Eilindjé, in the district of Boghozlian, of parents who are Ottoman subjects, and never ceased to belong legally to his original nationality. He has declared, it is true, at the time of his cross-examination before the cross-examiner, that he went eleven years ago to America and obtained the American naturalization, but he has not been able to produce any authentic act or document to sustain his pretense. His Excellency Merndouh Bey adds, however, that the examination of his affair is presently on the point to be closed. Mr. Gresham to Mr. Terrell. No. 141.] DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, February 12, 1894. SIR: I received on the 6th instant a telegram from you, presumably of that date. While I have on several occasions expressed to the minister of Turkey in this capital my readiness to consider any propositions which his Government might see fit to advance in the direction of negotiations for a naturalization treaty, explicitly defining the rights of the citizens or subjects of either country when returning thereto and sojourning therein, after having become lawful citizens or subjects of the other country, and while it appears from your dispatches that you have similarly evinced your disposition to receive such propositions from the Porte, there has at no time been intimated, either here or at Constantinople, any disposition on the part of this Government to enter into a provisional international agreement upon the subject. A modus vivendi, such as you announce that you are arranging, would, if at all effective toward the end proposed, be a treaty, within the meaning of the Constitution, concluded without the participation and consent of the Senate of the United States, and could, moreover, scarcely fail to be embarrassing in the course of subsequent negotiations toward a formal convention. In the present condition of our relations with Turkey any makeshift disposition of the treaty rights of American citizens is to be avoided, and the instructions under which you act do not confer upon you power to enter into such a conventional arrangement. Apart from this, the necessity of a modus vivendi regulating the rights of American citizens in Turkey is not understood. It certainly can add no sanction to our treaty rights whereby citizens of the United States are guaranteed against imprisonment or punishment by the Turkish authorities. The position of this Government with regard to the exclusion or deportation of American citizens of Turkish origin, whose presence in Turkey may be inconsistent with the public peace of the Empire, has been clearly stated and needs no additional definition. My instruction to you of the 9th instant, in the case of Garabed Kevorkian, and the Department's instruction to Mr. Hirsch, therein referred to (No. 142, of December 22, 1890), may be profitably consulted by you in this relation. * I am, etc., W. Q. GRESHAM. FOREIGN RELATIONS. Mr. Gresham to Mavroyeni Bey. DEPARTMENT OF STATE, Washington, February 21, 1894. SIR: Referring to our conversation at the Department this afternoon, I have the honor to inform you that the following shows the names and places of detention of naturalized citizens of the United States, being the most recently reported cases: 1. Katharine Toprahanian and two children at Alexandretta. 2. Adam Aivazian at Yosgad. Permission refused to investigate his right to protection. 3. Joseph Ardjinjanian at Alexandretta. 4. Two are said to be detained at Iskanderoum whose names are not mentioned. Accept, etc., W. Q. GRESHAM. Mavroyeni Bey to Mr. Gresham. IMPERIAL LEGATION OF TURKEY, MR. SECRETARY OF STATE: I have duly communicated to the Sublime Porte, by telegraph, last evening, the names you were kind enough to give me, by your yesterday's note, of some Armenians, naturalized Americans, and asked for information about same. I am glad to have now to inform you that according to a telegram from His Excellency Saïd Pacha, just this minute received, the two Armenian persons in detention, according to your said note, at Alexandretta, are not, as a matter of fact, in detention now. And as regards Aivazian, he is accused of a crime for which he is at present tried before the courts. His Excellency Saïd Pacha adds in his telegram that further details on all these points will be sent by mail. I hope your excellency will duly appreciate the promptness and fair ness of the Sublime Porte's answer. Please accept, etc., MAVROYENI. Mavroyeni Bey to Mr. Gresham. [Translation.] WASHINGTON, February 23, 1894. MR. SECRETARY OF STATE: I have the honor to confirm my note of yesterday, concerning the answer of the Sublime Porte to the communication which I made, on the fate of the Armenians mentioned in your note of the 21st instant, and to inform your excellency that I am in receipt of a second telegram from His Excellency Said Pacha, telling me that the two Armenians who are at Alexandretta are on the point of being expelled by the sea route. As to the one who resides at Yosgad, his American nationality not being as yet established, and being accused of crime, such measures will be taken concerning him as will result from the investigation made on the spot, bearing on his nationality and on the crime of which he is accused. Please accept, etc., MAVROYENI. No. 196.] Mr. Terrell to Mr. Gresham. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Constantinople, February 24, 1894. (Received March 12.) SIR: I am informed that the naturalized citizens of the United States who have been so long detained at Alexandretta2 have been ordered to depart from the Ottoman Empire. The man imprisoned at Yozgad, who has been referred to in former dispatches, will, I have reason to believe, soon be expelled also. I have, etc., A. W. TERRELL. No. 217.] Mr. Terrell to Mr. Gresham. LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, Constantinople, March 19, 1894. (Received April 9.) SIR: I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of a dispatch signed by the Hon. Edwin F. Uhl, No. 150,3 of date the 27th ultimo, directing me to ascertain the character of the "passport" referred to by Jacob Toprahanian in his letter to you of the 8th ultimo as having been issued to his wife, Catharine Toprahanian. That passport was issued by me on the 10th day of October, 1893. Its number is "195." On receiving your instructions to facilitate the woman in her effort to join her husband correspondence was opened with him in New York, and his certificate of naturalization was sent to 1 Aivazian. 2 Mrs. Toprahanian was furnished in the summer of 1894 with a United States passport, and by order of the Porte with a teskeré, or traveling passport, to come from the interior of Asia Minor and embark with her two children for the United States to join her husband, a resident of New York. She was stopped at Alexandretta and detained there for more than two months on the ground that she was a Turkish subject. 3 Not printed. FR 94 -49 |