20 11 2008 - Con una lettera aperta 40 turchi-armeni hanno espresso il loro rammarico per le dichiarazioni di Vecdi Gonol

Con una lettera aperta 40 turchi-armeni hanno espresso il loro rammarico per le dichiarazioni di Vecdi Gonol , Ministro turco della Difesa che durante la cerimonia commemorativa per il 70° anniversario della morte di Ataturk all'Ambasciata turca di Bruxellles, aveva giustificato la deportazione degli armeni e dei greci "elogiando così il crimine e la pulizia etnica"avvenuti nel secolo scorso.........
Nella lettera il gruppo di armeni afferma che le dichiarazioni di Gonol contraddiscono la Costituzione Turca secondo cui ogni cittadino della Repubblica Turca e considerato un Turco............

Today's Zaman - A group of more than 40 Turkish-Armenians, in an open letter to Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have voiced their grievances about remarks from Defence Minister Vecdi Gönül that defended the deportation of Greeks and Armenians from Anatolia at the beginning of the last century, describing his comments as "praising ethnic cleansing and crime."
Gönül, in a speech at the Turkish Embassy in Brussels on the occasion of the anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk on Nov. 10, claimed that if Greeks and Armenians were still living in the country, Turkey would not be the same nation-state it is today. He also hinted that Armenia is supporting the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).
"If there were Greeks in the Aegean and Armenians in most places in Turkey today, would it be the same nation-state? I don't know with which w ords I can explain the importance of the population exchange, but if you look at the former state of affairs, its importance will become very clear," Gönül said. The Lausanne Treaty, signed in 1923, called for a population exchange between the Greek Orthodox citizens of the young Turkish Republic and the Muslim citizens of Greece, which resulted in the displacement of approximately 2 million people.
The Armenian population that was in Turkey before the establishment of Turkish Republic was forced to emigrate in 1915, and the conditions of this expulsion are the basis of Armenian claims of genocide.
In the same speech, Gönül hinted that Armenians are supporting the PKK. "We cannot deny the contribution of those who consider themselves the victims of this nation-building, especially the forced emigration, to the struggle in the southeastern Anatolia," he said. The group, in their open letter published on a Web site, stated that Gönül's remarks contradict the Constitution, which says that anyone bound to the Turkish Republic by the citizenship is called a Turk.
"It is very difficult to understand, if we are talking about a Turkish nation, why the Armenians and Greeks [non-Muslims] cannot be a part of this nation, when Kurds, Arabs and Albanians [Muslims] can be? To what extent does this mentality, which underlines that religious unity is required in order to be a nation, fit in with the contemporary state of law?" the letter asked.
The letter suggested that the changes made by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) toward democratisation were considered by intellectuals to be "positive," but that the rivals of the AK Party claimed these changes are jus t a disingenuous effort to get the financial support of the European Union.
"The reaction of the AK party to Gönül's scandalous remarks will be a very good indicator of the sincerity of the policies [of AK Party]," the letter claimed

asso.armeni.