GUL: OUR STRATEGIC COOPERATION IS JEOPARDIZED

Today’s Zaman, Turkey
March 29 2007

Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul has said "a single interest
group" has jeopardized the US-Turkish relationship, in an article in
a US newspaper.

"Our strategic partnership spans a wide range of global challenges,
from helping secure Iraq and Afghanistan to preventing the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, promoting energy
security and fighting terrorism in our region and beyond," wrote
Gul on Wednesday in an opinion piece in The Washington Times called
"Politicizing the Armenian tragedy."

"Yet, such strategic cooperation is jeopardized by a single interest
group that solely pursues its own political agenda over national
interests. Once again, Armenian lobbying organizations are determined
to politicize the past — and impose their view of history — without
any regard to the overriding and lasting interests of the United
States or Armenia."

Indicating that Turkey has no difficulties in facing its past, he said
all Turkish archives, including the military archives of the period,
are open to the entire international academic community.

However, important Armenian archives are not.

In the article Gul also referred to the slain Turkish-Armenian
journalist Hrant Dink’s wishes: "As Mr. Dink himself said in a
published interview shortly before his tragic death, ‘What I want
from the Armenian diaspora is not to make any demands about accepting
the genocide, neither from Turkey, from the parliament nor any other
governments’."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress