The building of the famous Camp Armen summer camp of the Armenian orphanage of Istanbul, which was at the risk of being demolished, has been saved. According to Turkey’s Agos Armenian weekly newspaper, the current owner of the building has announced that he’ll be donating the orphanage to the Fund of the Armenian Protestant Church of Gedikpasha, writes ermenihaber.am.

Harut Ozer, who is a member of Turkey’s Düşünce Platformu (“Ideological Platform”) that is actively fighting against the demolition of the orphanage, gave his commentary about the demolition during the broadcast of Radio Agos program on Özgür Radyo.

He mentioned that they had meetings with head of the Tuzla district of Istanbul Shadi Yazijin, Armenian MP candidate of the Justice and Development Party Margar Yesaian, the fund’s lawyer Sebu Aslangil and representatives of Düşünce Platformu in order to have Camp Armen returned to the Armenians.

“After the meetings, we reached an agreement on having the owner of the real estate grant the ownership right. We expect to receive the ownership documents this week,” Harut Ozer said.

Current owner of the Camp Armen building Fatih Ulusoy has issued a statement that particularly reads as follows: “What convinced me were the request and assignment of Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, as well as Mayor of Istanbul Kadir Topbashi, head of the Istanbul territorial division of the Justice and Development Party Selim Temurci and head of the Tuzla territorial division Shadi Yazijin. In our days when attempts are being made to have an impact on our society’s feelings in relation to the events of 1915, in order to help our Armenian citizens have peace of mind and to contribute to solidarity within our society, with all due respect, I publicly announce that I’ll be donating the area to the Fund of the Armenian Protestant Church of Gedikpasha.”

Let us remind that Camp Armen is an Armenian camp is a formerly abandoned and currently dilapidated Armenian camp located in the Tuzla District of Istanbul. The dilapidated building used to be a summer camp for Armenian orphans and children in need. The 5,552 square meter Camp Armen was purchased by the Fund of the Armenian Protestant Church in 1961 and served as a summer camp for Armenian orphans and children in need in Gedikpasha. It is known that famous Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and his wife, Raquel Dink grew up here.

On the morning of 6 May 2015, the current owner of the camp started demolishing the camp/orphanage, but the demolition was short-lived due to the large-scale protest that was launched by the Turkish-Armenian community and helped temporarily stop demolition of the building.