PM ERDOGAN: NO PARLIAMENT CAN TARNISH OUR HISTORY

Today’s Zaman
March 19 2010
Turkey

Marking the 95th anniversary of the Battle of Gallipoli, Prime Minister
Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said no country’s parliament can challenge
Turkish history, in reference to decisions in various parliaments
around the world declaring the 1915 killings of Armenians who lived
under Ottoman rule "genocide."

Erdogan was in Canakkale yesterday commemorating the soldiers
killed during the 1915 Battle of Gallipoli, which was won by the
defending Ottoman army and laid the groundwork for the Turkish War of
Independence and the foundation of the Turkish Republic eight years
later under Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

"I should underline that this country’s soldier is bigger than history
and that this country’s history is as clean and clear as the sun. No
country’s parliament can tarnish it," Erdogan said, speaking at the
ceremony at the March 18 Stadium.

Erdogan also said that if the events of eastern Anatolia in 1915 are
to be illuminated, that will take place through archives, documents,
memoirs, reports, letters and pictures, and "not the parliaments that
are thousands of kilometers away," adding that there are new documents,
reports, letters and pictures emerging about the Battle of Gallipoli
and that historians dedicate their whole lives to sharing this history.

Armenians around the world have been lobbying for a long time,
claiming that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman
Turks around the time of World War I, but Turkey denies that the
deaths constituted genocide, saying the toll has been inflated and
that those killed were victims of a civil war and unrest. Erdogan
said some states that had imperialistic desires in Canakkale then are
now making "irresponsible announcements, passing unfair judgments"
against Turkey, which "needs an apology." "There is no genocide
in our civilization. Our civilization is the civilization of love,
tolerance and brotherhood," Erdogan added. "Those who stay in the
past can never reach a bright future."

Meanwhile, yesterday Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was in Ankara’s
Cebeci Asri Cemetery commemorating March 18. He said the date gives
Foreign Ministry officials an opportunity to remember the ministry’s
martyrs.

Davutoglu noted that Turkey has lost 39 of its foreign service
officers in 28 terrorist attacks since 1973. "No country’s foreign
service has ever had that many attacks. We have shown and we will
show our decisiveness against all terrorist attacks, especially
[Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia] ASALA," he said.

ASALA was a terrorist organization that targeted Turkish diplomats
in Europe during the 1970s and 1980s.