ERDOGAN CANCELS VISIT TO ARGENTINA: KEMAL ATATURK BUST NOT TO BE ERECTED IN BUENOS AIRES
Panorama.am
17:28 31/05/2010
Politics
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is traveling about
Latin America, cancelled his visit to Argentina. The reason is that
the municipal authorities of capital city of Argentina Buenos Aires,
pressed by the Armenian community, gave up the idea of erecting Kemal
Ataturk bust.
Erdogan was to have left Brazil for Argentina on May 31. The Turkish
Prime Minister was to meet with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez
de Kirchner in Buenos Aires. Besides, he was to attend Kemal Ataturk
bust unveiling ceremony in Buenos Aires George Nuber park.
However, as early as before Erdogan started his travels, at the end of
the previous week, after the protests of Argentine Armenian community
representatives, Buenos Aires Municipality decided to annul Kemal
Ataturk bust erection ceremony.
According to Radio Liberty, besides making the mentioned decision,
Municipality representative Diego Santilli also apologized to the
Armenian community for a “hard mistake,” as he classed it, and promised
to disallow to unveil the bust.
Naturally, official Ankara’s response to the decision was harsh.
According to Turkish press, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke
to his Argentine counterpart George Taiana and called on him “to stay
loyal to his commitments.”
In addition, the Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement accusing
the Armenian organizations of Argentine of “hostile” intervention.
“Argentine government acted so, pressed by Armenian circles having
hostile disposition towards Turkey,” the statement read.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, had a phone conversation with
President Cristina Kirchner and demanded reconsideration of the
decision.
In response, the Argentine President said that though she understands
Turkish side’s position, nevertheless Argentine government cannot
intervene into municipal authorities’ decision.
“It would be a violation of Argentine Constitution,” the President
said.
Therefore Prime Minister Erdogan cancelled his visit to Argentina
and will leave Brazil for Chile instead.
It should be mentioned that the news attracted the attention of the
leading world media.
Thus, BBC besides presenting the fact also touched upon the
Armenia-Turkey relations. “The Armenian organizations want Turkey
to recognize the mass slaughters as genocide, and Argentina is among
the countries having done so,” BBC reported.
Mohammedan countries’ media also commented upon the news. The Al
Arabiya TV channel touching upon the news and the Armenian Genocide
issue wrote: “The Argentina-Turkey relations worsened again.”
And Turkish Zaman touched upon the adoption of the bill on recognition
of the Armenian Genocide in Argentina. The newspaper mentioning that
the respective legal act was adopted in 2006 November and ratified by
Argentine President of that time Nestor Kirchner (current President
Cristina Kirchner’s husband: Panorama.am) tries to ground this Latin
American country’s position:
“Argentina has the third biggest Armenian community after the U.S.
and France,” the newspaper wrote. It should be mentioned that
indeed, the Argentine Armenian community is the third in the Western
Hemisphere and, in general, it comes after not only U.S. and France,
but also Russia, Iran, Georgia, Syria, and, according to some data,
also the Ukraine.
From: A. Papazian