DIALOGUE IS OUR PRIORITY

Having participated in the gala dinner of Forum Istanbul 2010, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis stated in his speech that the process of amending the Constitution, which was an outcome of a military coup, had been realized after 30 years later.

Starting his speech by referring to the visit of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan to Athens, Bagis emphasized that Turkey caught attention of the world in terms of its relationship with its neighbors in the recent days.

Mentioning the economic distress that Greece has faced with, Bagis said: "While our neighbor burdens under the economic distress and has some conciliation problems with its allies in Europe and even with its friend in the same union, the Prime Minister of Turkey travels to Greece together with 10 ministers and about 300 businessmen and signs 22 agreements just in one day".

Noting that they discussed about every issue that may be considered, ranging from ecumenism to continental shelf, from the problems of the Greek-Orthodox to fight with the illegal migration, Bagis continued his speech as follows:

"I do not say that ‘we have solved all the problems'. However, the diagnosis is the half part of the treatment. I believe that it is now the high time that these two brave leaders, with their determination and strong public support behind them, kept going ahead after Ataturk and Venizelos and found solutions for all those mentioned problems. We attempted to do so in the past, too. Yet, we have found out that the problems remained unsolved by drinking raki or playing syrtaki. We have understood that it is time to discuss the problems sincerely. We have found out what bothered us without requiring much diplomatic expression and that we needed to discuss sincerely".

Indicating that the problems would get more complicated when the state ignored its citizens and we should face with the problems, Bagis noted that the EU member states had also drawbacks, but they showed desire to face with their own problems.

Stating that they also tried and put the process of amendments in the Constitution, which was an outcome of a military coup, into practice 30 years later, Bagis said: "The nation will make the final point about the constitutional reform package that will reflect real democratic standards and the EU standards. September the 12th will be an interesting day. Exactly 30 years after the military coup, the repressive mindset emerging from that Constitution of a military coup is about to be amended by the help of a constitutional reform package, the most comprehensive one of its own history.

Remarking that they would raise the standards of Turkey and go on telling the allies and the neighbors who do not want to accept this reality that they, in fact, would be stronger with a developed Turkey, Bagis said that Turkey would present quite significant benefits to EU and Turkey would continue to express that it would be the key for EU to tackle with its problems.

In his speech at the dinner, stating that the AK Party Government had been looking for conciliation for the past 7 years, Bagis continued his speech with a saying from Ghandi. Articulating the words of Gandhi as "You can not shake hands with a clenched fist", Bagis said: "I am talking about the real Gandhi not the fake one." Continuing his speech as: "We have tried to shake hands even with clenched fists, but we faced with fists in return", Bagis said: "I hope we could feel real consensus from now on and take action for the EU altogether".

Source: AA