On March 7, Brussels will be hosting the Turkey-EU summit. Before that, a tripartite meeting was held with the participation of Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Dutch Prime Minister, EU current President Mark Rutte. The sources close to the prime minister note that the meeting has discussed the developments in Syria, refugee problems and religious issues.
In an interview with Aravot.am, Ruben Melkonyan noted that Turkey is going to Brussels with strongly anti-European and anti-democratic situation, “As there are such events taking place in Turkey in recent days that on the one hand are contrary to the European standards: human rights, democracy and many declarations, on the other hand, demonstrate the true purpose and the true practice of the Turkish authorities, in other words, the commitments assumed in European Union and other global platforms, the voiced speeches and actual steps of Turkey contradict each other again. In particular, the Court has flagrantly violated in Turkey, and the Turkish President announces that the decision of this country’s Constitutional Court is void and he does not accept its decision. These are overt autocratic and dictatorial trends.
Secondly, freedom of expression is violated, we know that an attack by the state has been carried out on one of the opposition newspapers that has the largest circulation – the “Zaman” newspaper, which is estimated as one of the rudest and brutal persecution steps against the press in Turkey. And Erdoğan announced again that if it is a violence against the press, then he, yes, exercises a violence.” Ruben Melkonyan also noted that arrests are taking place in Turkey during which human rights and the presumption of innocence are violated, “We can say that the sum of all of this demonstrates the commitments of Turkey assumed before the European Union, which to put it mildly are not fulfilled. And this meeting compared with the previous meetings is remarkable with more and more eye-catching toughness.” He stressed that in the context of all of this, the Armenian trend is also not ignored, “The scandalous revelation that occurred 2 days ago that the Turkish intelligence service continues to keep Armenians and the Armenian community in its spotlight, it has closely followed the Hrant Dink trial. And all of this, in other words, all developments connected with the murder of Hrant Dink, it – the Turkish National Security Service – estimates as divisive actions. This also speaks of day-by-day dreadful volumes of defects of dictatorship in this country.”
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Ami CHICHAKYAN
