REBURIAL CEREMONY OF TURGUT OZAL

Attending the reburial ceremony of the 8th President late Turgut Ozal, Minister for EU Affairs and Chief Negotiator Egemen Bagis said:

“We disturbed the corpse of late President in its final resting place… This is an extremely sad situation.

This is a case in point of how Turkey changed over the past years.

We seek justice through opening this grave.

We make an attempt for the unknown to be known in Turkey.

We make efforts not to allow any crime to remain unsolved and the criminals to be free to walk the streets with impunity.

We will continue to work as party and government until an atmosphere where the citizens or Presidents are not disturbed in their graves prevails in Turkey.

We desire to have a Turkey where life, not death, is the basic principle.

A Turkey which is fair. A Turkey in which no one can act with impunity and for which a bright, not a dark, future holds. That’s what we call the EU standards. A Turkey where people don’t fall victim to dark conspiracies and life is the basic principle... We will have such a Turkey, please God.

Today we are in attendance at the reburial of late Ozal who paid important services to the Turkish nation and whom our nation remembers with love and respect. May God have mercy on him, have him rest in peace.

I hope our forensic medicine experts will shed light on allegations about the death of late Ozal soon and eliminate the question marks hanging over his death.

I wish it had not been done like this… I wish late Ozal had just been left well alone in his grave. However, this was not possible. Now I believe that at least after the allegations about the death of Ozal are investigated, late Ozal will be left in peace in his grave.

Ozal is one of those rare leaders who earned the title of ‘man of the nation’. Therefore, even if Ozal is physically dead, his messages are still alive and valid. As a matter of fact, that’s the important point. We are all mortal. We all will depart this life one day. However, the question is whether or not you leave a pleasant sound to this world while you depart this life. And that’s the most important of all…

Ozal has trusted this country and this nation with an important and valuable legacy with all his services, vision and determined stance, leaving a pleasant sound being the least.

That legacy is going beyond the level of the contemporary civilizations. That legacy is furnishing our nation with the most contemporary means of the world.

That legacy is justice, development, peace and serenity… The love and loyalty you showed here today is also a response to those who suspect how his legacy is embraced by the nation.

Late Turgut Ozal was a political leader and statesman who came from the breast and heart of this nation, built a bridge of love with the nation and spoke to this nation with their words.

Turgut Ozal challenged the status quo in Turkey through his political approach which placed the individual in the centre.

It was a historical turning point for Turkey when he applied for full membership to the European Economic Community 24 years ago in 1987.

In actual fact, Ozal had likened the way to the European membership to ‘a long thin road’ through foreseeing the difficulties we would come across in the EU process and had warned us that there would be some who would try to deter us from this way and get Turkey to throw in the towel.

We remember Turgut Ozal once again with gratitude while we are proceeding ‘on that long and thin path’ with determination under the leadership of our Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who provided a historic impetus to our European Union process.

I hope those who once took a stand against Ozal but started to support him today will sincerely support our EU process.

In a time when unrest, fear and paranoia were all around Turkey, Turgut Ozal came along and made this nation gain self-confidence again.

Late Ozal, followed a paradigm-shifting policy in a time when both Turkish and world politics collapsed, a new world order instructed and became the architecture of the change of the mindset.

When Ozal came into power Turkey was still living in the black and white era…

With his reforms, Turkey became more divers and richer. It caught up with the era, came out of its shells and opened up to the world.

Even in 1980s Ozal said "21st Century will be Turkey's century."…

Just like Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Late Turgut Ozal was a political leader and statesman who came from the breast and heart of this nation and who managed to build a bridge of love with the nation and spoke to this nation with their words.

Turgut Ozal played the leading role in Turkey's international expansion, enactment of the constitutional rights and freedoms.

Ozal says: "WE LOVE CHILDREN. WE LOVE THE YOUTH. WE LOVE THE PEOPLE. THERE IS NOT A BEING, AN INSTITUTION NOR A DOCTRINE MORE SACRED THAN THE HUMANS."

When there was an assassination attempt to kill him, without leaving the rostrum as injured, he took the microphone and said: "No one but god can take the life he has given…And we have surrendered to him."

Our nation will remember Ozal and the soul men like Ozal, who have the same point of view with the nation, with gratitude and cherish those who carry their legacy forward.