Hürriyet, Turkey
Sept 5 2008
Turkish opposition leader criticizes Armenia visit
Armenia needs to stop its push for recognition of the `genocide’
before Turkish President Abdullah Gul visits the country this weekend,
the Turkish leader of the opposition said Friday.
"What has Armenia done to change its policy of hostility towards
Turkey over the issue of Armenian lies; what has it done to withdraw
from Azerbaijani territory? Nothing," Deniz Baykal, leader of the
Republican People’s Party (CHP), said in an interview with Turkish
news channel, NTV.
"Perhaps he could go and pray at the site of the `Armenian genocide’
and lay a wreath while he is there," Baykal added.
Gul will attend a football World Cup 2010 qualifier in Yerevan on
Saturday afternoon following an invitation from his Armenian
counterpart, Serzh Sargsyan.
Armenia, with the backing of the Diaspora, claims up to 1.5 million of
their kin were slaughtered in orchestrated killings in 1915. Turkey
rejects the claims, saying that 300,000 Armenians along with at least
as many Turks died in civil strife that emerged when Armenians took up
arms for independence in eastern Anatolia.
The Turkish press published Friday comments made by Gul in 1993 when
he was a member of an Islamist political party.
Gul criticized the Turkish government of the time for inviting the
Armenian head of state to attend the funeral of the then Turkish
president, Turgut Ozal.
"How can you have the audacity to shake the hand of an Armenian
president, whose country has invaded Azerbaijani territory (…) Like
Israel, Armenia stands alone in our region," he said in parliament,
according to Turkey’s Vatan daily.
Turkey is among the first countries that recognized Armenia when it
declared its independency. However there is no diplomatic relations
between two countries, as Armenia presses the international community
to admit the so-called "genocide" claims instead of accepting Turkey’s
call to investigate the allegations, and its invasion of 20 percent of
Azerbaijani territory despite U.N. Security Council resolutions on the
issue.
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