TURKISH TO BOYCOTT ELECTION OVER ARMENIAN ‘GENOCIDE’

Expatica, Netherlands
Oct 5 2006

AMSTERDAM – A large section of the Turkish community in the Netherlands
is planning to boycott voting at the 22 November national elections.

The director of Turkish lobby group IOT, Ahmet Azdural, said primarily
young Turkish immigrants feel that the nation’s political parties
don’t listen to other opinions.

Turkish voters are reacting to decisions from Labour PvdA and
the Christian Democrat CDA to dump Turkish politicians from their
candidate lists.

The decision was taken after they refused to accept that genocide
was committed in the mass murder of Armenians by Turkey in 1915.

The controversy will cost the left-wing opposition parties PvdA,
green-left GroenLinks and Socialist PS a lot of votes.

A poll of immigrant voters indicated two weeks ago that the three
parties could count on 60 percent of immigrant votes.

The poll was conducted when the Turkish candidates Ayhan Tonca and
Osman Elmaci (CDA) and Erdinc Sacan (PvdA) were still listed as
candidates for the Lower House of Parliament elections.

National Turkish organisations and politicians will now meet on Sunday
in Capelle aan den Ijssel to decide on a joint course of action to
prevent the Armenian issue damaging the relatively large voter turnout
rate for the Turkish community.

Turkish student groups protested in Amsterdam, The Hague and Groningen
and in front of the PvdA office in Amsterdam on Thursday.

PvdA MP Nebahat Albayrak said on Wednesday it was right to discuss
genocide and that Turkish immigrants in the Netherlands and Europe
must be prepared to enter debate about the mass murder of the Armenian
population.

Despite Turkey’s denials, Albayrak said it was right to describe the
mass killings as genocide. But she also said Turkey has the right to
dispute the use of the international legal term ‘genocide’.