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Today's Zaman, Turkey
Jan 27 2012
Spokesman says Dink was bait, AK Party target
27 January 2012 / TODAYSZAMAN.COM,
Turkish ruling party spokesman has said killing of a prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist in 2007 was a bait to target the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and to foment chaos in the
country.
A man who was believed to be behind the 2007 killing of prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was sentenced to life in prison
recently in a verdict that drew criticism from rights groups for
failing to explore alleged complicity of state officials.
Editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos and Turkey's best
known Armenian voice abroad, Dink was shot in broad daylight in a busy
Ä°stanbul street as he left his office.
Dink had angered Turkish nationalists with articles on Armenian
identity and references to a Turkish "genocide" of Christian Armenians
in 1915 -- which the Turkish state strenuously denies. The case was
seen as a test for democracy and human rights in European Union
candidate Turkey.
The judge at an Ä°stanbul court sentenced Yasin Hayal to life
imprisonment and acquitted 19 defendants of a charge of being part of
a terrorist group. A juvenile court sentenced Dink's assassin, Ogün
Samast, to 22 years and 10 months in jail last July. He was 17 when
the killing took place.
`Dink was chosen as a bait, the real target in AK Party,' Hüseyin
Ã?elik, who is also AK Party deputy chairman, said in a news
conference.
Ã?elik added that the prosecutor of the Dink case said the murder is a
work of an organization, referring to the killing to be an organized
crime. He said that he believes it was not only several people who
assassinated Dink and there is evidence that makes him and public
believe otherwise.
Ã?elik said those who killed Dink wanted to foment chaos in Turkey and
instigate instability in the country.
He also ruled out claims that six outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) terrorists were also killed in a botched military strike, which
claimed the lives of 34 civilians in southeast Turkey in December,
describing such allegations as `a conspiracy theory.'
`The government has no such information. These [allegations] are a
conspiracy theory. The state admitted that it made a mistake,' he
said.
Claims have recently emerged suggesting, according to wiretap records
of conversations seized by intelligence units, that six members of the
outlawed PKK were also killed by the military airstrike in Å?ırnak's
Uludere. According to the conversation, the PKK took the corpses to a
PKK camp in Haftanin. Ã?elik also said the PKK might from time to time
try to use civilians as human shields. In the meantime, Ã?elik also
announced on Friday that citizenship of Anter Anter, son of Musa
Anter, a Kurdish author who was assassinated in 1992, will be
restored.
Anter Anter left Turkey in 1991, a year before his father, a prominent
Kurdish intellectual and peace activist, fell victim to what remains
one of many unsolved assassinations that took place at the time. Anter
appealed to the Turkish authorities to end the ban last year and was
allowed to enter the country on Tuesday, Jan. 24, after receiving
special permission from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an.
Jan 27 2012
Spokesman says Dink was bait, AK Party target
27 January 2012 / TODAYSZAMAN.COM,
Turkish ruling party spokesman has said killing of a prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist in 2007 was a bait to target the ruling
Justice and Development Party (AK Party) and to foment chaos in the
country.
A man who was believed to be behind the 2007 killing of prominent
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink was sentenced to life in prison
recently in a verdict that drew criticism from rights groups for
failing to explore alleged complicity of state officials.
Editor of the bilingual Turkish-Armenian weekly Agos and Turkey's best
known Armenian voice abroad, Dink was shot in broad daylight in a busy
Ä°stanbul street as he left his office.
Dink had angered Turkish nationalists with articles on Armenian
identity and references to a Turkish "genocide" of Christian Armenians
in 1915 -- which the Turkish state strenuously denies. The case was
seen as a test for democracy and human rights in European Union
candidate Turkey.
The judge at an Ä°stanbul court sentenced Yasin Hayal to life
imprisonment and acquitted 19 defendants of a charge of being part of
a terrorist group. A juvenile court sentenced Dink's assassin, Ogün
Samast, to 22 years and 10 months in jail last July. He was 17 when
the killing took place.
`Dink was chosen as a bait, the real target in AK Party,' Hüseyin
Ã?elik, who is also AK Party deputy chairman, said in a news
conference.
Ã?elik added that the prosecutor of the Dink case said the murder is a
work of an organization, referring to the killing to be an organized
crime. He said that he believes it was not only several people who
assassinated Dink and there is evidence that makes him and public
believe otherwise.
Ã?elik said those who killed Dink wanted to foment chaos in Turkey and
instigate instability in the country.
He also ruled out claims that six outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party
(PKK) terrorists were also killed in a botched military strike, which
claimed the lives of 34 civilians in southeast Turkey in December,
describing such allegations as `a conspiracy theory.'
`The government has no such information. These [allegations] are a
conspiracy theory. The state admitted that it made a mistake,' he
said.
Claims have recently emerged suggesting, according to wiretap records
of conversations seized by intelligence units, that six members of the
outlawed PKK were also killed by the military airstrike in Å?ırnak's
Uludere. According to the conversation, the PKK took the corpses to a
PKK camp in Haftanin. Ã?elik also said the PKK might from time to time
try to use civilians as human shields. In the meantime, Ã?elik also
announced on Friday that citizenship of Anter Anter, son of Musa
Anter, a Kurdish author who was assassinated in 1992, will be
restored.
Anter Anter left Turkey in 1991, a year before his father, a prominent
Kurdish intellectual and peace activist, fell victim to what remains
one of many unsolved assassinations that took place at the time. Anter
appealed to the Turkish authorities to end the ban last year and was
allowed to enter the country on Tuesday, Jan. 24, after receiving
special permission from Prime Minister Recep Tayyip ErdoÄ?an.