GUL DECLARES HIS FAMILY IS MUSLIM AND TURKISH
armradio.am
22.12.2008 13:43
President Abdullah Gul released a statement yesterday about his
family’s ethnic origins in response to a Republican People’s Party
(CHP) deputy’s attempt to link the president’s attitude toward a
recently launched apology campaign for the Armenian killings at
the hands of the late Ottoman Empire in 1915 to his ethnic roots,
Today’s Zaman reported.
As CHP deputy Canan Arıtman who claimed that President Gul’s mother is
of Armenian origin, continued to attack the president in an interview
published in the Milliyet daily yesterday, saying that she would like
to throw a shoe at the president when she sees him in the same way
an Iraqi journalist last week hurled a shoe at visiting US President
George W. Bush. Gul released a statement denying claims that his
family has Armenian roots.
In his statement yesterday, Gul announced that his mother’s side,
the Satoglu family from Kayseri, and his father’s side, the Gul family
also from Kayseri, are Muslim and Turkish, according to centuries of
written genealogy records.
"I respect the ethnic background, different beliefs and family ties of
all my citizens and see this as a reality and also the wealth of our
country with its imperial history. I also would like to emphasize
that all my citizens are equal to one another regardless of any
differences. No one has any superiority whatsoever over another
one. Everybody has the equal and same rights under the guarantee of
our Constitution," the statement read. "I am proud of our country,
which has reached this level of understanding."
When Gul was asked for his opinion on the campaign, he said the
state’s stance is to improve relations with its neighbors. "We
believe dialogue to be the solution for problems we have with our
neighbors. Perpetuating problems is not useful to anyone," he said.
–Boundary_(ID_/xDsx6w2975z+mhbA+hFgA)–
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
