WE ARE LIKE FLESH AND BLOOD, WE CANNOT SEPARATE

Participating as a guest speaker in a TV program, "Baskent Kulisi" at Channel 7, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator, Egemen Bagis replied questions on various issues.

Upon a question regarding the "First Democratic Autonomy Workshop" which was held in Diyarbakir and the process after, Bagis stated that those claiming that Justice & Development (AK) Party didn't comment on this issue were being unfair, and he advised everyone to listen carefully to the budget speech of the Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan that day.

Bagis said: "It is unfair to claim that we, as the government, have not made a comment on this issue. No other political party, politician or prime minister has ever used the motto, 'one nation, one flag, one state' as much as our government has. We have put this into words by all means, we have this motto written on mountains, rocks, billboards but in doing so, we haven't got the intention of imposing one's ethnic origin on another. Being one nation connects us to each other. Of course, there will be our Kurdish, Circassian, Bosnian and Zaza brothers among us. Our differences are our richness. However we have a common characteristic feature that connects us to each other, that makes us the citizen of Turkish Republic, gets us walk with joint steps towards a common future, and this requires us to keep our state's interests under its own flag. We have always underlined this fact."

Expressing that sowing discord among a society who had lived brotherly and become flesh and blood did no good for anyone, Bagis pointed out that demands for "democratic autonomy" were some people's efforts for exploitation. Bagis said: "I don't believe that my Kurdish brother has a claim, demand or expectation of autonomy but some people are trying to seek benefit for themselves by touching the sensitive points."

Stating that villages in Turkey hadn't had schools, hospitals, roads, drinking water in the past but every village had road, drinking water, school and health care center then, Bagis, said:

"Just as an environment of this kind is created, some people are trying to exploit it (by requiring a separate flag, autonomy, etc.), and unfortunately this kind of nationalism may turn into a racism which is a dangerous disease. Patriotism is entirely something different. Loving your country means to increase the income per capita, to increase its respectability, to improve Turkey's technology, to increase the number of schools, to improve the democratic rights. Or else, trying to demonstrate the love of country by demanding this and that, growing nonsense moustaches and making gestures is being unfair to this country's people. I consider these as the efforts of some people to touch sensitive points of the society since they are incapable of doing something. I think there is nothing dangerous, the balance of this nation has never disrupted and we are like flesh and blood, so how can we separate?"

Source: AA