MAIN OPPOSITION PARTY TO CALL FOR PARLIAMENTARY SESSION ON ARMENIA
Hurriyet
March 18 2010
Turkey
The main opposition Republican People’s Party, or CHP, is planning to
request a parliamentary session to review the normalization process
with Armenia.
Party leader Deniz Baykal had earlier urged the government to withdraw
the protocols signed in October following the approval of "genocide"
recognition bills in the Swedish parliament and the U.S. House of
Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee.
Addressing his party members Wednesday, Baykal criticized recent
comments by Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who told the BBC in
an interview that some 100,000 Armenians had been illegally working in
Turkey. Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos, however, estimates the number
at 14,000, citing Labor Ministry statistics. Erodgan’s remarks were
interpreted as a threat to expel the workers in reaction to campaigning
by members of the Armenian diaspora for bills such as those passed
in Sweden and the United States.
"It is an unfortunate and serious statement," Baykal said, adding
that he found the remark "unacceptable."
"It is against human rights to misuse those people working in Turkey
in seeking a solution to a disagreement," the CHP leader said.
Baykal has opposed any normalizing of relations with Armenia due to
the deadlock in the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute between Yerevan and Baku.
The CHP argues that the protocols between Turkey and Armenia, which
envision opening the border and normalizing diplomatic ties, should not
be ratified until Armenia amends its constitutional article related to
"genocide" and withdraws from the territory it occupies in Azerbaijan.