TURKEY TO DECLINE PRESIDENCY AT OSCE?

Abdullah Gul Explains

Azg/am
21 July 2004

Arminfo, citing Anatolu news agency, informs that the Turkish deputy
prime minister and foreign affairs minister Abdullah Gul officially
stated that Ankara declines the OSCE presidency term of 2007. Gul
refuted all the rumors that Armenia is the cause of this decision.

On June 14 Vartan Oskanian, foreign affairs minister of Armenia,
declared at Washington Center for Strategic and International Studies
that Armenia will veto Turkey’s presidency at the OSCE because of the
policy Ankara adopted against Armenia. “The OSCE presiding country has
to have relations with allmember states”, Oskanian declares.

Meanwhile Gul explains the refusal saying that the 2007 is the year of
Turkey’ s presidential elections and they cannot effectively preside
at the OSCE asa result. Gul’s excuse seems strange as far as the
Turkish officials were well aware of the elections in their country
while running for the OSCE presidency.

The foreign affairs minister of Cyprus said earlier that Turkey
refused the presidency as considered the probability of veto from
Armenia.

The USA State Department spokesman Richard Baucher declared: “Turkish
diplomats in the OSCE informed that Ankara turned down its candidacy
as theTurkish government will have other problems to consider in
2007. They said that won’t be able to run a decent tenure, and we
respect their decision”.