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Turkish-Jewish Businessman: “Turkey Lost When Jewish, Armenian Businessmen Were Chased Away And Made To Leave The Country”
 In a letter to the chief editor of Turkish daily Referans, owner of Alarko Holding Izak Alaton reacted to a recent high court decision in Turkey that banned the sale of real estate to foreigners. Alaton wrote about how in 1940s Armenian and Jewish businessmen were chased and compelled to leave the country - at Turkey's loss - and more recently how willing investors for big development projects in Turkey were rejected just because they were Jewish – as in the case of the Israeli businessman Sammy Ofer who would invest one billion dollars to develop a port in Istanbul. Alaton said that the bureaucracy and the media had joined forces to stop the project. In his letter that is published at Referans, Alaton wrote, “As long as this paranoia, this xenophobic, anti non-Muslim, antisemitic sentiments will continue to exist in Turkey, we will all be obliged to live in mediocrity, stuck in the sidelines of life.” Source: Referans, Vatan, Turkey, April 23, 2008
Posted at: 2008-04-23
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