ISTANBUL - Justice Minister Cemil Cicek who attended in the Balkan Countries' Justice and Interior Ministers Meeting held in Thessaloniki, Greece returned to Turkey on Wednesday.
Speaking to reporters at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport, Cicek said upon news stories which said that some political party leaders would not attend the reception which would be hosted on the occasion of April 23 by Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc that they should have overcome those issues earlier and stated that Turkey should not lose time and opportunity due to those kinds of disputes.
Cicek said that organized crime organizations, drug trafficking, human and weapon trafficking were taken up at the meeting and noted that Turkey always wanted international cooperation in those fields, but it did not get such an approach so far.
Stating that there should be mutual cooperation to block and decrease those crimes, Cicek said that it was stated clearly that those crimes were a modern threat for nations, societies and the region at the meetings.
Cicek noted that he said that those crimes blocked peace, stability, human rights and development of bilateral relations during his speech at the meeting.
''Those crimes have a direct link with terrorist organizations. Because, terrorist organizations finance their activities through those crimes. Thus, it is obvious that cooperation in that field and prevention of those crimes will weaken terrorist organizations to a great extent. We said those things at the meetings,'' Cicek said.
Cicek said that another important issue was that there should be parallelism in definition of crimes and added, ''if a thing which is accepted as crime by us is not accepted as crime by another country, cooperation will not be possible in that case.''
Cicek said that another issue was which was discussed at the meeting was fight against corruption and stated, ''it is known that some former administrators who served in public sector in Turkey and who debited the public goods to his/her account have been living in European countries. Those people were not extradited to Turkey, although we demanded their extradition from some countries. Some suspects who are members of organizations which were formed to destroy right to live are in western countries. When we wanted those people to be extradited to the country, those people were not extradited to Turkey since officials said that their crimes which they committed in Turkey are not considered as crime in their countries.''
Stating that people who were in charge of being involved in organized crimes were used as political instrument in a way of interrupting in internal affairs of another country by some countries, Cicek said, ''unfortunately, some organizations which caused troubles and bloodshed in Turkey have been supported by some western countries. They come to Turkey and cause troubles. We explained those issues in an appropriate way at the meeting.''
Upon questions on news stories which said that some political party leaders would not attend the reception which would be hosted on the occasion of April 23 by Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc, Cicek said, ''I have read those news stories as soon as I arrived in the country. I wish that we had overcome those issues already. There are other issues which we should focus on. Turkey should not lose time and opportunity due to those disputes. We should unite our power and energy to solve other problems.''
(EÖ-AÖ) 23.04.2003