Turkey's President Abdullah Gul said, "Everybody should know that Turkey is undoubtedly an open society where democratic rights are under the guarantee of laws, and all should respect it. In this context, non-violent expression of thought via peaceful means is a democratic right. We keep saying it since the very beginning and we feel honored to keep saying it."
Gul is currently in the province of Rize in the eastern part of the Black Sea region of Turkey.
Gul said he wished to visit Rize for years and noted, "All parts of our country are beautiful. The Black Sea region has its own beauties, the South has its own, Central Anatolia has also its beauty and all Turkish citizens can choose to live where ever they want. We had to know the value of it and live together in harmony and friendship."
Gul reminded that Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was a good old friend of him and that they had the duty to advance the country together.
President Gul in Black Sea province Rize
Gul on Wednesday said, "In the neighboring countries, in the Middle East there have been many events. The people who watch the incidents in Turkey try to compare them. But this is completely wrong. They protest in the Middle East for fundamental rights and freedom, to move to democracy, multiparty system, so that everybody have the right to express in the way they want."
Gul visited the Governor of Rize and answered the questions of the journalists and noted that the demand of the protestors were not the same as those in the protests in the Middle East.
Gul reminded that when the whole world was affected by the economic crisis, Turkey's economy was functioning properly and added that Turkey's population was open and has a warrant democratic rights and rule of law.
"It's a democratic right to protest peacefully and express one's opinion. This is what we said till the beginning but the violence affects the life of all citizens on the important crossroads of the country like Kizilay [Ankara] and Taksim [Istanbul]. You can't evaluate these actions as a democratic right if its used lawless and with a permanent use of violence," Gul explained his view of the protests and added that not only in Turkey, but also in New York, Berlin or Spain nobody allowed this.
Gul repeated that Turkey was a open society and elaborated on the use of disproportionate force, "We need to see the faults. If we do not say 'this was wrong' this would not suit our maturity. The incidents on the first two days were wrong. The police in Istanbul accepted this. And you can see how their behavior changed the last days. If you insist that the wrong is right you lose your credibility."
englishnews@aa.com.tr
