Two Armenian Americans living in the United States — 88-year-old Pargev Ghazaryan and his son Karo Ghazaryan — have filed a lawsuit against Turkey after being denied permission by the embassy to visit their ancestral village in the south of that country.
Pargev Ghazaryan, born in 1931 in the Turkish village of Kalantura, decided in 2017 to return to his birthplace “for the purpose of performing Christian rites.” To this end, he applied to the Turkish embassy, stating his ethnicity and religious affiliation in the visa application.
The Turkish embassy denied visas to the Ghazaryans, father and son. As the plaintiffs’ attorneys have noted, the reason was their Armenian origin.
It was noted that for Pargev Ghazaryan, that attempt to travel was the last possible opportunity to go abroad, given his age and state of health. In the lawsuit, the elderly Armenian accuses Turkey of violating a number of agreements.
