Member of Turkey’s Great Union Party (BBP) Arif Kyoroghlu has appealed to the prosecutor’s office for opening a case against Armenian member of Turkish Parliament Garo Paylan of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).
Citing “Beyaz Gazetesi” Turkish news website, Ermenihaber reports, Kyoroghlu has referred to Paylan’s remarks over the Armenian Genocide during deliberations held on January 13 on proposed changes to the country’s constitution.
In an interview with reporters, Kyoroghlu has accused Paylan for what he believed to be ‘incitement to revenge and enmity.’
The Turkish parliamentarian claimed the use of the Genocide word in the Turkish parliament is ‘humiliating’ for the Turkish Republic, people, and the legislative body.
“Our state has opened all the archives over the topic to the world,” the Turkish deputy has argued, adding Paylan’s statement should be qualified as crime made use of his parliamentarian immunity.
Kyoroghlu has argued that Armenians and other minorities residing in Turkey ‘have lived in peace and harmony’ since the establishment of the Turkish Republic.
To remind, Garo Paylan was temporarily banned from parliamentary sessions after referring to the Armenian Genocide in Turkish Mejlis. In his speech Paylan said four communities – Armenians, Assyrians, Greeks and Jews – had been ‘lost’ and ‘driven from these lands in large massacres (and) genocides.”
“We used to account for 40 percent [of the country’s population]. Now we are barely one out of a 1,000. It seems likely that something happened to us. I define this as a genocide,” Paylan said in his speech.
According to some sources, the part of the speech was removed from the parliamentary minutes.