Turkish EU Minister believes in more reforms

By Roni Alasor, Brussels – Ararat News Publishing - Speaking to the foreign EU-correspondents in Brussels Press Club, the Turkish EU Minister Egemen Bagis praised the achievements of his government leaded by Justice and Development Party (AKP). He mentioned the "progress made until now for the ethnical and religious minorities", giving as an example "the opening of the Armenian and Greek-Pontius churches as well as the Kurdish broadcasting TV-channel TRT-6".

After a question from Ararat News (ANP), why the Turkish state channel has not any pedagogical and educational programs addressed to the Kurdish children, the Turkish EU minister told to the foreign EU-journalists that he is going to take this human question with the relevant institutions in Ankara. Minister Bagis underlined also that his party is aware of "the necessity to make more reforms (a new constitution) to reach democratic standards".

Regarding the arrest of several thousand Kurdish politicians, more than 40 lawyers and around 60-70 journalists in Turkey, Bagis defended the positions of his AKP government and told that his AK-party “is not involved” in the arrests which continue since 2009. However, he told that some of the arrested journalists are not detained because of their journalist profession, but because of their “connection to illegal organisations” as Ergenekon ect which tried to “overthrown the democratically elected government”, AKP.

According Bagis, “many illegal tapes including the private conversations of the prime minister with his own wife, in his own bedroom, and secret documents have been found in the office of some of those arrested journalists who had/have links to the deep-state terror organisations as well as Ergenekon. Mr. Bagis said he was self secretly recorded over the phone and he had to go to the prosecutor’s office. But now AKP self is accused by oppositions “to record everyone”.

Concerning the arrest of several thousand Kurdish politicians, the Turkish EU Minister avoided to give concrete answer, pointing out that, “according the Turkish police and secret services, the arrested are connected to the Kurdish illegal organisation called Union of Communities in Kurdistan, KCK” or PKK. In the last 25 years, 30-40.000 people lost their live in the ongoing conflict in Turkey.