During a television program, President of the Union of Armenians of Malatya Khosrov Kyoletavitoglu declared that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan is his former classmate and that the Prime Minister has instructed to speed up the process of restoring the structures at the Armenian cemetery in Malatya.

During the “4^th Power” television program broadcast on TV Malatya, President of the Union of Armenians of Malatya (HAYDER) Khosrov Kyoletavitoglu told about the creation of the Union, the demolition of the last farewell building and watch-house under construction at the Armenian cemetery in Malatya and Prime Minister Erdogan’s instruction to restore these structures quickly.

“We Armenians of Malatya living in Istanbul had a great longing for Malatya. One day, we decided to create a Union and appealed to the department dealing with Unions and named it HAY, which means Armenian and combine the first part of the word “Union” (Dernek in Turkish). Then, we chose the cross on the door of the Holy Trinity Church of Malatya as a logo,” said Khosrov Kyoletavitoglu.

Touching upon the issue of the Armenian cemetery in Malatya, the President of HAYDER mentioned that the Armenian cemetery used to have a 27,000 square meter area, but now it is only 10,000 square meters. Kyoletavitoglu stressed that the Union hadn’t been able to find relevant documents to get the lost lands back in accordance with the new law.

Talking about the demolition of the last farewell building (cathedral) and watch-house under construction at the Armenian cemetery in Malatya, the leader of the Union of Armenians of Malatya mentioned that Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan, who was Kyoletavitoglu’s classmate, helped restore the demolished buildings quickly. “I’m a former classmate of the Prime Minister. He played football very well. He was also working for the Department of Transport at Istanbul Municipality. One time we heard that they wanted to include Erdogan and our friend named Oghuz in the “Fenerbahche”, but Oghuz was selected. Erdogan was very sad.

When the buildings of cemetery under construction were demolished by Malatya Municipality, Prime Minister Erdogan called us, expressed his sorrow and promised that he would restore everything,” said Khosrov Kyoletavitoglu.

Let us mention that the opening ceremony of the building (cathedral) for bidding farewell to the Armenian cemetery in Malatya was held on June 29^th with the participation of deputies and several state officials.

On 2 February 2012, the watch-house and cathedral under construction at the Armenian cemetery in Malatya were demolished by the assignment of Malatya Municipality. This raised a wave of protest in Turkey and abroad, after which the mayor of Malatya claimed that the buildings had been demolished by accident and promised to provide government funding for restoration.

News.am