Hrant Dink" align="left" width="270" height="218" />YEREVAN (RFE/RL), February 26—A campaign was launched in Turkey to rename a street in Istanbul after Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, the chief editor of the newspaper “Agos.”  This initiative was supported by almost 2,000 people, who joined the campaign  giving their signatures, prominent Turkish intellectuals among them. However, the city administration of Istanbul has already rejected the request twice.

The organizers of the campaign say that the support of the citizens is more important than the approval of the authorities, and they tend to support the initiative of gathering as many signatures as possible. For this motive an Internet site was launched, and 1,800 members have already joined.

The “Culture of Peace” campaign intends to rename the Ergenekon street in the Sisli district after Armenian journalist Hrant Dink.

According to Turkish mythology Ergenekon is a mythical place. Also it is the name of Turkish ultra-nationalist organization.

One of the members of the campaign, a singer of the youth musical collective “Kardesh Turkuler” Ferjan Oney said that he, like many others, believes Hrant Dink’s murder was the doing of “Ergenekon.”

For the first time the Sisli District appealed to the authorities with a request to rename the street “Shafak” to “Hrant Dink Street.” Shafak Street is symbolic, since Dink’s house is situated there.

Istanbul authorities had rejected the request without the consideration of the city council.

The head of the Istanbul’s cartographic department Tayyip Ulgen told in the interview to a newspaper that according to Prime Minister’s order, new names can be given to streets that have no names, or in case the street is divided into two parts. “Accordingly we do not have the right to rename the street,”  he said.

However, the editor of “Agos” Aris Naldjhi told the newspaper Hurriyet that the amendment made in 2007 legislation  enables local authorities of the Sisli district to rename the street without recourse to the city of Istanbul.

A second request was presented by City Council member Ozgen Naman. However, on February 9 it was also turned down.

Translated from Russian by Yerevan Report

Photo credit: EPA