NEW YORK (Bloomberg) — An Armenian group sued the US Federal Reserve under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to force the disclosure of information on gold or other assets allegedly seized from Armenians by the Turkish government in 1915.
The Center for Armenian Remembrance said Armenian assets called “Turkish gold” — money totaling about $8.13 million — were seized during the Armenian Genocide, in court papers filed this week in US District Court in New York.
The seizure was made under “a Turkish directive to deem all Armenians’ assets abandoned,” Julia Greenberg, the lawyer for the group, said in a letter to the Federal Reserve Board.
The Turkish government deposited the assets in Germany’s Reichsbank, and they were later taken by the US and other Allied powers at the end of World War I under the Treaty of Versailles. The organization filed a FOIA last June with the Fed, it said. The agency said it couldn’t locate any information and forwarded the request to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
