Ottoman Dynasty Claims Its Heritage in Musul

The Osmanogullari automatically gained the position of successors to Abdulmecit II when he registered a big part of Mosul and Kerkuk (Kirkuk) as his personal properties in order not to give way to the British when he realized that the region was rich with oil. After Saddam Hussein’s overthrow, the Osmanogullari took action to claim their heritage. According to this week’s edition of Aksiyon weekly news magazine, the Turkmens, who had been forced to leave the land they have been living on, want to regain control of their properties through the formation of a Turkmen Council. Sultan Abdulhamit II’s grandchildren are among 15,000 Turkmens who have applied to the Iraqi Temporary Governing Council to regain ownership of their property,

Hasim Soylemez documented for Aksiyon the Osmanogullari family’s application to the Iraqi Governing Council to claim their property in Mosul and Kirkuk. Collecting required documents, the family has applied to various U.S. department offices through their lawyers in order to regain their rights to oil fields as well as to land in Mosul and Kirkuk. Fearing that the subject of the letter would be misunderstood, the members of the Dynasty want the issue to be kept private.

The Osmanogullari family had previously brought the issue of regaining their property up during the Lousanne Agreement, but the British produced a fake edit in order not to lose oil sources in Iraq.

Sir Andrew Raine, who was working for the British Embassy in Istanbul as a translator, prepared the fake edict that claimed Abdulhamit II donated his personal title deed to the Ottoman State because he did not want to leave the state in poverty when he handed over his throne. The British represented the said fake edict as evidence in Lausanne and thus wrongfully took what was rightfully the Osmanogullari’s.

During the First Gulf War, history Professor Mim Kemal Oke, was assigned to research the matter by then President Turgut Ozal. Oke says that his research supports the claim that the British prepared a fake edict to own the oil fields in the region. Despite losing their rights in political maneuvers, the Osmanogullari kept their legal fight in the international courts until the mid-1940s. Even more so, the Swiss Federal Court reached a verdict that the real estate of Sultan Abdulhamit II belongs to his successors. In addition to this verdict, the Osmanogullari use German Emperor Wilhelm II as an example of someone who was exiled into the Netherlands and later regained control of his property through legal channels.

Another family that shares the same destiny as the Osmanogullari is the Neftczades family, most of which still reside in Kirkuk. With an edict to search for oil for 400 years in Babagur near Kirkuk, the Neftcizades renewed the edict through former Prime Minister Ismet Inonu in 1927. However, since control of Musul and Kirkuk was later passed to the British, the family was unable to exercise the privilege granted to them with the edict. The legal authorities reached consensus that the Osmanogullari could regain their rights through legal channels. Emphasizing that a real estate agreement was also signed with Iraq in 1985 along with the other countries that the Ottoman Empire once included, lawyer Habib Hurmuzlu is of the opinion that even though the agreement is not in practice, it is still valid. Hurmuzlu expressed his hope that the Iraqi Temporary Governing Council will take the said agreements into consideration.