Turkish Armenians indignant at Defense Minister's statement

November 13, 2008 - 15:19 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net - Those who do not like Turkey's "one nation, one flag" structure can leave and go anywhere they like better, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said when commenting on Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul statement that Turkey had to deport Greeks and Armenians in the beginning of the 20th century.



Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul took this threatening discourse to new heights on Monday with a speech he gave at the Turkish Embassy in Brussels. "Would we be the nation-state we are today if the Greeks in the Aegean region or the Armenians here and there continued to stay in Turkey?" he asked.



Gonul drew harsh criticism from intellectuals and civil society organizations for expressing ideas in a way that could be taken for justifying ethnic cleansing.



The Armenian community of Istanbul sent a letter to PM Erdogan to remind that the Turkish Constitution says that Turk is a citizen of Turkey, irrelative of the nationality, Turkish Press Review reports.
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