PARIS - Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly (COEPA) Turkish Delegation Chairman Murat Mercan said on Wednesday that Turkish government would continue making reforms on human rights and democratization with determination.
Mercan held a joint press conference with COEPA rapporteurs after COEPA Monitoring Committee has decided to close the monitoring procedure over Turkey. He said that reforms in Turkey were made to increase democratic life standard of Turkish people, not for closing the monitoring procedure over Turkey.
Noting that the report has a positive style, Mercan thanked rapporteurs for their positive contributions. He said that Turkish delegation objected to especially some descriptions about minorities in the report. He added that Turkish delegation objected to this issue`s inclusion in Turkey report, while there were some problems about the description of national minority in France and some European countries.
Turkey rapporteurs Mady Delvaux Stehres from Luxembourg and Luc Van den Brande from Belgium said that Turkey has taken very important steps on the path of democratization in recent years.
Stehres said upon a question that lifting of capital punishment, change in the structure of National Security Council (NSC) and fulfilling the decision of European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) in the case of Greek Cypriot citizen Titiana Loizidou were among the most important reasons to close the monitoring procedure over Turkey.
Upon a question about former parliamentarians of the Democracy Party (DEP) who were in prison, Stehres said that retrial of them after the decision of ECHR was an important step.
Noting that the monitoring procedure was closed and ``post-monitoring`` procedure started, Stehres said that as they mentioned in the report they were expecting Turkey to make necessary arrangements on 12 issues which were considered deficient.
Brande said that they considered the reforms important, but they were expecting Turkey to attribute necessary importance to put reforms into practice.
(GC-AY) 03.03.2004