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SPOKESMAN SAYS DINK WAS BAIT, AK PARTY TARGET
TODAYSZAMAN.COM
27 January 2012
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,
Ogun 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," Huseyin
Celik, who is also AK Party deputy chairman, said in a news conference.
Celik 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.
Celik 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. Celik also said the PKK might from time to
time try to use civilians as human shields. In the meantime, Celik
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 Erdogan.
From: A. Papazian
TODAYSZAMAN.COM
27 January 2012
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,
Ogun 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," Huseyin
Celik, who is also AK Party deputy chairman, said in a news conference.
Celik 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.
Celik 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. Celik also said the PKK might from time to
time try to use civilians as human shields. In the meantime, Celik
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 Erdogan.
From: A. Papazian