ANKARA - National Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said on Saturday that the claims saying that ''Turkey would forgive terrorists and would have direct contact with them'' were not true, noting that there was no such pressure on Turkey.
Addressing the parliament about the budget of his ministry, Gonul said that the amount of the budget which increased by 24 percent in 2003 when compared to 2002, only increased by 6.7 percent in the year 2004.
Upon questions of deputies about the budget, Gonul said that National Defense Ministry didn't have any study about shortening the term of military service or bringing exemption from military service by paying money.
Answering the question of Opposition Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Sukru Elekdag about ''claims of Turkey's forgiving of terrorists, having direct contact with terrorists,'' Gonul said that those claims were not true, noting that there was no such pressure on Turkey.
Gonul said that his ministry carried out a work on transfer of one of the centres of NATO for fight with terrorism to Turkey, adding that ''there is no such thing like NATO's opening a centre against terrorism in Turkey.''
Referring to efforts of cleaning southeast region off mines, Gonul said that they estimated that there were 1.96 million mines in the region and they would be cleaned within ten years. Gonul stressed that it was the target of the government to open those fields to agriculture in the future.
Gonul added that defense policies were particularly important as 13 of the 18 areas of conflict and threat in the world were around Turkey.
(Öª) 21.12.2003