Is Istanbul’s historical areas are going to remain on UNESCO’s World Heritage List or not was one of the questions discussed between the authorities and experts critical of the municipal administration’s policies that they claim are destroying the centuries-old monuments and neighborhoods.
Recently a dispatch from the semi-official Anatolian Agency datelined Paris brought the issue to foreground once again. The dispatch quoted a UNESCO official as saying that Istanbul was not among the sites that might be knocked off the World Heritage List. The dispatch was widely used by the Turkish newspapers with headlines declaring, “UNESCO announces, Istanbul not on the endangered heritage list.”
News, etc. contacted UNESCO directly and found out that no such announcement was made. UNESCO’s Press Officer Cathy Nolan replying to News, etc. said, “I spoke to Ms Rossler (The official in charge of the World Heritage List’s North America and Europe section) after receiving your message and she denied emphatically and categorically that any official statement had been made by UNESCO concerning Istanbul and whether or not its status would be discussed at the next World Heritage committee meeting. As you say, it is UNESCO’s policy not to comment on such matters before the meeting.”
Asked for further clarification of the matter, Nolan sent a second mail that said:
“Dear Gokhan Tan,
Excuse me if I was not sufficiently clear.
UNESCO has not made any statement about the possible outcome of any discussion regarding Istanbul during the next committee meeting. This is what I was told by the World Heritage Centre yesterday.
We do not know the source of these headlines, but as far as the UNESCO World Heritage Centre is concerned, they are not based on fact.”
World Heritage Committee will hold its 34th session in Brazil on August 3rd. The committee is composed of 21 members elected by 181 member countries.
News, etc. also contacted Rahmi Gunduz, the Paris correspondent of Anatolian Agency, who said that his report was based on “information given to him by his ‘source’ and his own experience.”
“Until now only two items were taken off the World Heritage List. As you can see this is not an easy decision to make. I wrote my dispatch after the Istanbul press carried some reports claiming that Istanbul will be taken off the list. I can tell you from now that they won’t take Istanbul off the list but they will just issue a warning. That’s my interpretation,” said Gunduz.
However, he also added that he did not write that the information in his dispatch came from an UNESCO official. He made it understood that the desk editor at the agency’s headquarters put it in that way while editing the story.
Whether Istanbul will be moved to Endangered Heritage List has been discussed since June 2003 when Hurriyet published an interview with Minja Yang, the General Director of UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage Center. During the interview Yang pointed out that there has been no improvement with regards to preserve the cultural heritage of Istanbul during the seven years since they had a meeting with the municipality of Istanbul in 1997. She indicated that if no proper steps are taken Istanbul might be taken off the heritage list.
Prof. Dr. Cevat Erder, a faculty member of the School of Architecture at Middle East Technical University in Ankara has been one of the consultants of UNESCO’s Cultural Heritage Center checking how the historical monuments are preserved and sending periodical reports to UNESCO about the current situation of the areas earmarked for preservation. However, in an interview with News, etc., he sounded rather disappointed with the authorities and indicated that since 1985 they have never fulfilled the promises they made to UNESCO.
“I cannot find the mental power to explain how the Great Byzantine Palace (Magnum Palatium) now remains underneath a hotel construction,” says Prof. Erder, referring to the hotel construction in Sultanahmet on top the ruins of the 4th Century palace.
The metro bridge planned over the Golden Horn, the destruction of Istanbul’s centuries-old Gypsy quarter, Sulukule are all cited as the municipal authorities’ disrespect for the preservation of the city’s cultural heritage.
“We are defiling the heritage that we have promised to protect,’ says Erder.
