EURO MPs CALL ANKARA TO PROTECT AZERIS RESIDING IN TURKEY

PanARMENIAN.Net - During the discussion of the report on Turkey's accession to the EU, presented by Dutch Christian Democrat Camil Yorlings, EP deputies proposed over 500 amendments to the report, which had already contained many conditions and reservations. As reported by Radical Turkish newspaper, proposals on making amendments mainly referring to questions of withdrawal of Turkish forces from Cyprus, opening the Armenian-Turkish border, impossibility of unambiguous guarantees for Turkey's accession to the EU.

Besides, the amendments proposed also referred to protecting the rights of the Shiite minority and conferring an official status to the latter. The Shiite minority is considered part of the Azeri ethnos in Azerbaijan, as most Azeris are Turkic-speaking Shiites.

The matter concerns Muslim Shiites, mainly speaking Turkic languages, who live in Eastern regions of Turkey. Part of them (karapapaks) found themselves in Turkey due to the joining of the former Kars region to Turkey in 1920. In spite of Turkic-speaking Shiites have an identity, different from the Turkish one, they are not recognized in Turkey as a separate ethnic group.

The memory of historical hostility and persecutions divide Shiites from the Sunni majority. Hundreds of thousand Shiites were destroyed in Anatolia within a few days in the 16-th century by order of Selim sultan. Later on the persecutions continued but the Kemalist ideology refuses to recognize the separate ethnic status of Shiite Turks.