TURKEY: ITALIAN PREMIER URGES ANKARA TO ‘SAFEGUARD’ DEMOCRACY IN WAKE OF KILLINGS

AKI, Italy
April 19 2007

Rome, 19 April (AKI) – Italian prime minister Romano Prodi, referring
to attacks against Christians in Turkey including Wednesday’s murder
of a pastor and two of his parishioners in the central eastern city
of Malatya, has urged the Ankara government to maintain a greater
"surveillance" over the "rules of democracy," in the country. Police
in Malatya have arrested some 10 people in connection with the triple
murders – the victims were found with their arms and legs bound and
with their throats slit – in the Zirve publishing house that has been
involved in distributing Bibles.

"My reaction is the same as when [Italian Catholic priest Andrea]
Santoro was killed [in February 2006 in the Turkish Black Sea port
Trabzon]: on the one hand pain and mourning, on the other a serious
invitation to the Turkish government to maintain surveillance over the
rules of internatonal democratic cohabitation," Prodi said Thursday
speaking from the South Korean capital Seoul which he is visiting.

Malatya a hotbed of ultra-nationalism in Turkey is the hometown of
Mehmet Ali Agca a Turkish man who in 1981 attempted to assassinate
Pope John Paul II.

Hrant Dink a Christian and prominent Turkish-Armenian journalist
murdered by a ultra-nationaist in Instanbul in January was also born
in Malatya.