Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan on Friday dismissed criticism and reassured Turkey's Armenian community that they are not being targeted after facing anger for his threats to expel Armenian illegal immigrants.
“We have never had any problems with our Armenian citizens,” Erdoğan told a meeting of his Justice and Development Party (AK Party) in Ankara. He complained that he was misquoted in the media, which he said misrepresented his remarks to suggest that they are targeting Turkey's Armenian community.
“Unfortunately, my remarks were published after the reference to illegal immigrants was taken out. There is a vast difference between ‘expelling Armenians' and ‘expelling Armenians working here illegally',” Erdoğan said. “We have no such remarks concerning those Armenians that are our citizens, but unfortunately the televisions or newspapers do not say that.”
The prime minister, whose government has launched a democratic initiative to expand rights for Kurds and non-Muslim minorities including the Armenians, said his position on minorities was clear. “I want to remind everyone here that I am the first prime minister to courageously voice the injustices inflicted on our minorities,” he said.
Erdoğan, in an interview earlier this week with the BBC Turkish service, said there were 70,000 Armenians living in the country illegally alongside Turkey’s 70,000-strong Armenian community. Erdoğan, responding to the passage of resolutions endorsing claims that Armenians were subject to genocide at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire first at the US House Foreign Affairs Committee and then in the Swedish parliament earlier this month, said in the interview that the Armenian diaspora was causing harm both to a process of reconciliation with Armenia and to Armenians. “If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 [Armenians] to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don’t have to keep them in my country,” he said.
“Unfortunately, my remarks were published after the reference to illegal immigrants was taken out. There is a vast difference between ‘expelling Armenians' and ‘expelling Armenians working here illegally',” Erdoğan said. “We have no such remarks concerning those Armenians that are our citizens, but unfortunately the televisions or newspapers do not say that.”
The prime minister, whose government has launched a democratic initiative to expand rights for Kurds and non-Muslim minorities including the Armenians, said his position on minorities was clear. “I want to remind everyone here that I am the first prime minister to courageously voice the injustices inflicted on our minorities,” he said.
Erdoğan, in an interview earlier this week with the BBC Turkish service, said there were 70,000 Armenians living in the country illegally alongside Turkey’s 70,000-strong Armenian community. Erdoğan, responding to the passage of resolutions endorsing claims that Armenians were subject to genocide at the hands of the late Ottoman Empire first at the US House Foreign Affairs Committee and then in the Swedish parliament earlier this month, said in the interview that the Armenian diaspora was causing harm both to a process of reconciliation with Armenia and to Armenians. “If necessary, I may have to tell these 100,000 [Armenians] to go back to their country because they are not my citizens. I don’t have to keep them in my country,” he said.
The remarks drew ire from Turkish media commentators and rights groups, who said Erdoğan’s remarks meant Armenian workers -- most of whom work for monthly wages of a few hundred liras -- were being used as a bargaining chip in foreign policy.
Columnist Cengiz Çandar, one of many in the Turkish media who chided Erdoğan for his remarks, said in his column in the Radikal daily that Erdoğan should apologize to Armenians.
Erdoğan angrily dismissed the call in his speech: “I am talking to those who advise me to apologize; I know very well whom to apologize to. Whose advocate are you?”
President Abdullah Gül, widely seen as the architect of the rapprochement with Armenia, told reporters this week that Erdoğan’s BBC remarks meant to underscore that there was no hostility toward Armenians, emphasizing that humanitarian and political issues should be separated from each other and recalling that Erdoğan is always sensitive on humanitarian issues.
Erdoğan’s government, which broke a foreign policy taboo by initiating talks with neighboring Armenia to restore ties, now complains its efforts have not been reciprocated. Following the US and Swedish votes, the government warned that the reconciliation process was being harmed. Relations with the US and Sweden are also at risk: Turkey recalled its ambassadors in both countries and cancelled senior-level contacts in protest of the resolutions. Similar resolutions may now be voted on in the British and Bulgarian parliaments.
Erdoğan vowed retaliation if such moves go ahead. “There will be a heavy price for any initiative that would complicate the process. And it will be those who pursue and support these initiatives, not our nation, who will pay this price,” he said.
Columnist Cengiz Çandar, one of many in the Turkish media who chided Erdoğan for his remarks, said in his column in the Radikal daily that Erdoğan should apologize to Armenians.
Erdoğan angrily dismissed the call in his speech: “I am talking to those who advise me to apologize; I know very well whom to apologize to. Whose advocate are you?”
President Abdullah Gül, widely seen as the architect of the rapprochement with Armenia, told reporters this week that Erdoğan’s BBC remarks meant to underscore that there was no hostility toward Armenians, emphasizing that humanitarian and political issues should be separated from each other and recalling that Erdoğan is always sensitive on humanitarian issues.
Erdoğan’s government, which broke a foreign policy taboo by initiating talks with neighboring Armenia to restore ties, now complains its efforts have not been reciprocated. Following the US and Swedish votes, the government warned that the reconciliation process was being harmed. Relations with the US and Sweden are also at risk: Turkey recalled its ambassadors in both countries and cancelled senior-level contacts in protest of the resolutions. Similar resolutions may now be voted on in the British and Bulgarian parliaments.
Erdoğan vowed retaliation if such moves go ahead. “There will be a heavy price for any initiative that would complicate the process. And it will be those who pursue and support these initiatives, not our nation, who will pay this price,” he said.
Criticism against Israel
Erdoğan also lashed out at Israel for its recent announcement that it plans to build 1,600 new homes for Jewish settlers in disputed east Jerusalem, casting shadows over prospects for a restart of peace talks with the Palestinians. “Israel is making an effort to annihilate Palestine by making it smaller and smaller. This is the tactic,” he said.Israel angered the international community when it announced during a visit by US Vice President Joe Biden to the region this month that it would build new housing units in a part of Jerusalem that it captured in 1967 and annexed unilaterally.
Erdoğan, who has repeatedly criticized Israel for its deadly offensive in Gaza last year, said Israel should avoid steps that could change the status of east Jerusalem, which Palestinians hope would be their capital in a future Palestinian state. He also suggested that Turkey would not end its stern criticism of Israel unless Israel changes its policies. “If there is oppression somewhere, we will not accept that,” he said.
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