Agence France Presse
March 19, 2010 Friday 5:52 PM GMT
More than 100 protest Turkish PM’s Armenian deportation threat
ISTANBUL, March 19 2010
More than 100 protestors took to the streets of Istanbul Friday,
accusing Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of racism over
his threat to deport illegal Armenian workers.
Between 100-150 demonstrators marched along the Istiklal Avenue, the
main commercial street on the European side of the city, carrying
banners with the inscription "You are not Alone" in Turkish, English,
Armenian and Kurdish, an AFP photographer said.
"Tayyip should be deported! A world without nations, borders and
classes," chanted the demonstrators gathered at the call of a
non-governmental organization campaigning for immigrants’ rights.
A statement, distributed to the press, accused Erdogan of treating
Armenian immigrants as a pawn in Ankara’s protests against some
foreign parliament’s recognition of Armenian claims of genocide by
Ottoman Turks.
"We strongly condemn Erdogan… and those who share his racist and
discriminatory mentality," the statement added.
The demonstration ended peacefully.
In comments criticized at home and abroad, Erdogan said his government
could expel thousands of illegal Armenian workers if foreign
parliaments continue to pass votes branding the World War I-era
massacres of Armenians as genocide.
Resolutions recently voted to that effect in the United States and
Sweden "adversely affect our sincere attitude" towards illegal
Armenians, Erdogan told the BBC Turkish service on Tuesday.
"There are 170,000 Armenians in my country. Of these, 70,000 are
citizens, but we are tolerating the remaining 100,000… If necessary,
I may have to tell them to go back to their country… I am not
obliged to keep them here," he charged.
The exact number of illegal Armenians in Turkey are unknown, but
researchers say there are between 10,000 to 20,000 of them, adding
that Turkish authorities tend to inflate the figures to put pressure
on Armenia.
Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin perished in a systematic
extermination campaign during 1915-1918 as the Ottoman Empire fell
apart.
Turkey categorically reject the genocide label and argues that the
toll is grossly inflated.
str-han/lt
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress