TURKISH ARMENIANS INDIGNANT AT DEFENSE MINISTER’S STATEMENT

PanARMENIAN.Net
13.11.2008 15:19 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Those who do not like Turkey’s "one nation, one
flag" structure can leave and go anywhere they like better, Turkish
Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said when commenting on Defense
Minister Vecdi Gonul statement that Turkey had to deport Greeks and
Armenians in the beginning of the 20th century.

Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul took this threatening discourse to new
heights on Monday with a speech he gave at the Turkish Embassy in
Brussels. "Would we be the nation-state we are today if the Greeks
in the Aegean region or the Armenians here and there continued to
stay in Turkey?" he asked.

Gonul drew harsh criticism from intellectuals and civil society
organizations for expressing ideas in a way that could be taken for
justifying ethnic cleansing.

The Armenian community of Istanbul sent a letter to PM Erdogan to
remind that the Turkish Constitution says that Turk is a citizen of
Turkey, irrelative of the nationality, Turkish Press Review reports.