Turkish minister describes Armenian genocide claims as “slander”

Anatolia news agency
22 Mar 05

Ankara, 22 March: “I launch a call to countries who become a tool of
the Armenian allegations: Either you account for what you have done,
or prove the allegations,” Turkish Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime
Minister Abdullah Gul said on Tuesday [22 March].

Gul addressed his party group meeting as the acting prime minister.

Mentioning the so-called Armenian allegations, Gul recalled that
Turkish and Armenian peoples lived together for nearly a thousand
years and contributed to each others’ culture and security within
this period.

Gul stated that Armenians worked as high-ranking officials and
Armenian church has been set up in the Ottoman period, and said:
“Armenian language and religion were preserved and developed. Our
Armenian citizens, those who consider the issue objectively, and many
historians clearly saw those facts. Despite this, there is an enmity
against Turkey.”

“The sorrows and dangers experienced by the elements comprising
the Ottoman society during the last period of the Ottoman Empire is
another fact of the history. Everybody had difficult times in those
years. All those were historical facts,” Gul noted.

Gul said there were documents and evidences of the sufferings of
thousands of Ottoman citizens and stressed that those who affirmed
so-called Armenian allegations were the imperialist circles and
chauvinist Armenian nationalists.

“Armenian Diaspora living in the United States and Europe are in good
spirits. Since they are minority, they needed a tool to preserve
their minority conscience and their power. They needed an issue to
exploit. They are also guilty as they do not go to Armenia to help
their brothers. They have a comfortable life where they live. They
exploit this issue both to strengthen their presence there and to
use their minority powers.”

“Unfortunately, several parliaments made wrong decisions. We have
shown our reactions to the decisions taken in those parliaments,
and we will continue to react,” Gul stressed.

Emphasizing that genocide was a crime against humanity, Gul said
this was not an ordinary crime that can be imputed to anybody. Gul
reminded that Turkey also signed the UN treaty on genocide in 1948.
Noting that provisions pertaining to genocide became a part of the
Turkish Penal Code (TCK), Gul said: “In order to consider an act as
genocide, members of an ethnical or religious group should be killed
with the aim of eradicating them totally or partially.”

Gul said: “Has something like this happened in our history? If it
had happened, so why the Armenian churches still exist? Why there
are Armenian citizens in Turkey? ”

Describing the allegations as “sophistry and slander”, Gul said: “We
are launching a call to the parliaments and countries who become a tool
of those allegations: ‘if you are able to make such allegation, then
either you will account for them, or you will prove the allegations.”

“We have invited everybody and we have opened our achieves. We have
invited all the scientists, including the Armenian, French, American
and British scientists. The archives in Leningrad, Britain, Paris
and Armenia should also be opened,” Gul emphasized.

“If such a tragedy happened in this country, it has been experienced
altogether. Families of all of us had experienced such sorrows,”
Gul stressed.

Gul said the (Turkish) parliament and the government from now on
would be involved in further activities on such issues.

“Government’s willingness as regards to full membership to the European
Union (EU) is still alive. EU continue to be our main priority,”
Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said on Tuesday.

Gul recalled that several media organs recently asked questions
like, “does the government deviate from its EU target?” or “has the
government lost its excitement for EU?”.

Denying all those allegations FM stated that, “our primary target is
to make Turkish nation to reach a living standard at the EU level.”

Gul said any weakening or slowdown was out of question.