Journal of Turkish Weekly
April 27 2005

Time to be Careful on the Way to EU

Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Abdullah Gül,
in his explanation to Aydın Karaçay, Editor-in-chief of TRUE,
declared that Turkey was taking stable steps on the way to EU and
said Turkey would definitely discharge his duties until October 3.
Gül declared that the Government was aware of what was being gained
by EU process and they aimed to make the level of Turkey’s living
standard the same as EU and said: `Since we want our country to
reach the same level with a European Union country in education,
health, environment, transportation fields, EU is very important for
us. Don’t think it is only about democratic rights and freedom.
This is a much more important issue.’

Gül declared that the real sinister matters in our country were
trying to be hidden as a result of our political tradition and said:

`They say whoever comes next should solve the problem. The one who
comes last pays the bill. Actually, Turkey pays the bill in such a
case. If they had been fastidious, careful, if they had stayed away
from the populistic policies and had wanted to do the right thing,
everything would be better for Turkey today. Populism is easy, it is
possible to make the public violently angry but in the end it causes
turkey to come to an impasse, this has always been forgotten. We have
two choices. Either we will integrate with the modern life and EU
with reciprocal trust or we will be isolated. We know what happens to
the isolated countries. Isolated Turkey cannot be democratically and
economically powerful. There are examples, we may be like Belarus
(Ukraine of old times) or like some Asian countries. Turkish public
is a developed public which has a cultural and intellectual heritage,
which knows the world and the pleasures of freedom. Turkish public
has developed too much, from now on it cannot be isolated from the
world.

They have to prove their Genocide claims

Gül declared that they were closely following the improvements about
so-called Armenian Genocide which has is trying to be put on the
agenda recently. `Anybody should not forget the fact that Turkish
and Armenian publics lived together for 1000 years. We shouldn’t
forget that Armenians had senior position in Ottoman Empire period
and also Armenian Church was established in this period. The ones who
are honest and objective about this matter do not forget these facts.
Although these facts, Turkey still being treated hostilely.’

Foreign Minister made a call to European countries saying: `You
have to give an explanation and prove your claims about so-called
Armenian Genocide’ and he wanted the ones who act as a stooge for
unreal hearsays to be very careful.

He described ˜Armenian diaspora living in Europe and America’ as
following; `All of them are carefree. They needed something to
carry on their minority conscious and power. Besides this, they are
guilty because they don’t go to Armenia and help there.’ He said:
`Everybody had difficulties during the war. The ones who launched
the claims about so-called Genocide are imperialist surroundings and
chauvinist Armenian racists. Well… Are these claims true? If
that’s so, then what does Armenian Church do in this country? How
do our Armenian citizens live here? These claims are casuistries and
calumnies. We have a call for the parliements and countries which act
as a stooge for the claims: `Since you make such comments, you will
have to render account, you will have to prove it. We invited
everyone and opened all our archives. We made a call for all the
scientists. We called the Armenian scientists as well. So we will
always walk tall.’ Abdullah Gül reminded that there was no
relevance between so-called Armenian Genocide and Turkey’s EU
membership. He noticed that the conditions of the negotiation process
are definite for all the candidate countries and Turkey’s full
membership process will occur under the conditions defined by Acquis
Communitaire.

We won’t make concessions in Cyprus matter

Abdullah Gül underlined that Turkey had never made concessions in
Cyprus matter and said: `Everybody should be cool-headed and think.
What did we lose because of Government’s Cyprus policy which has
been carried out until now? If there is a loss, somebody should tell
it. We even didn’t take back one of our soldiers. We even didn’t
lose 1 meter square. We made Cypriot Greeks say that both societies
don’t want to live together. The whole world was shocked with the
fact that they have been cheated by Cypriot Greeks until now. Most of
the handicaps were removed for Turkey. Were Cypriot Turks better
before the referendum although they were open to the world before? Or
the contrary? Everything goes on step by step. We know that it is not
going on as fast as we hope. All of us are struggling in order to win
more. I am asking the ones who say we gave up TRNC: `Why did you
start the negotiations after TRNC had been announced. Why did you
come together with Cypriot Greeks in UN after TRNC had been
established? What did you negotiate over an established country? If
such a negotiation is done, it is normal for TRNC not to be
recognized.’ Abdullah Gül said that signing partnership agreement
with Southern Cyprus did not mean recognizing it and noticed that
Cypriot Greek ships would not be able to enter Turkish ports and he
added: `Turkey will go on recognizing TRNC. We have got an
ambassador in TRNC, and EU knows it. In the agreements, it is written
which areas are included, so why do we need to limit our future? For
2-3 months, we have been seeing the world-famous English, American,
French law firms which are the best in international relations. We
have been very careful. Everybody decided that it is an ˜unilateral
recognition’. We are conscious about our each step.’

Story from;
`True’, Society of European Journalists,Yıl:1, Sayı:5, 10, 27
Nisan 2005.