Anatolia News Agency, Turkey
Jan 20 2007

TURKISH ORGANIZATIONS CONDEMN JOURNALIST’S KILLING

Washington, DC, 20 January: Washington-based Turkish American
Associations Assembly (TAAA) strongly condemned on Saturday [20
January] the killing of Turkish Armenian journalist Hrant Dink and
urged every effort to bring to justice and punish perpetrators of
this vicious murder.

"The killing of Mr Dink is a great loss to Turkey. He was a respected
member and voice of Istanbul’s prosperous and growing Armenian
community," a statement by the TAAA said.

A group of people, including European Turkish parliamentarians, laid
a wrath in front of the building of Dink’s bilingual weekly Agos.

Civil servants’ union Memur-sen and moral rights workers’ union
Hak-Is also condemned the attack.

Meanwhile, Fener Greek Orthodox Patriarch Vartholomeos said that the
attack on Dink was a provocation attempt against the ideal of
peaceful coexistence of different cultures in Turkey.

"We are deeply saddened by the heinous assassination of Hrant Dink,
one of our country’s prominent journalists," Vartholomeos told
journalists before his departure to France.