ISTANBUL - ''Turkey wishes to normalize relations with Armenia, but Armenia should abide by fundamental international laws and fulfil requirements of neighborhood,'' Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Hilmi Ozkok said on Wednesday.
Taking the floor in a meeting held at the War Academies Command in Istanbul, Ozkok stressed that Armenia had been displaying a concerning stance, and noted, ''Armenia doesn't recognize Turkey's territorial integrity and launches initiatives for recognition of baseless Armenian genocide allegations in international arena and occupies an important part of Azerbaijani territories, disregarding UN Security Council resolutions. The political and legal dimensions of the unfounded genocide allegations were eliminated with the Lausanne Treaty. The Republic of Turkey did not undertake any liability under the agreement.''
Ozkok said, ''many Turkish and Armenians, who were the citizens of the Ottoman Empire, lost their lives in the incidents which occurred in 1915. The Ottoman Empire, which was in a war, launched a relocation in May of 1915 in order to protect the Armenian community from retaliation of Turkish community due to the moves of a group of Armenian gangs because those Armenian gangs rebelled against the Ottoman state, collaborated with rebellious states, launched massacres against local Turkish people and resorted to armed political activities for independence.''
-THOSE WHO CLAIM GENOCIDE DON'T HAVE ANY SUPPORT-
Gen. Ozkok said that the Ottoman Empire took all possible measures on those conditions in order to relocate people safely despite all the difficulties it was facing, and added, ''as it is known, genocide is defined as 'resorting to acts with the intention of annihilating a part or whole of a national, ethnic, racist or religious group'. Therefore, those who make these unfounded genocide allegations do not have any support.''
-TURKEY IS NEITHER ISLAM STATE, NOR ISLAM COUNTRY-
Referring to Broader Middle East Initiative, Ozkok said that Turkey's name was mentioned in the project due to its strategic location in this region.
''Some circles wanted to define Turkey in this project as a 'moderate Islam country'. About 99 percent of Turkey's population is Muslim. But, Turkey is a secular, democratic, and social state of law. Turkey is neither an Islam state nor an Islam country. It can mislead people to show Turkey as a model and derive the result that overwhelmingly Muslim-populated countries can be easily turned into a democratic structure. The point that is ignored here is that secularism is the motivative in development of democracy in Turkey,'' said Ozkok.
Ozkok added, ''principle of secularism is the keystone of all values forming the Republic of Turkey. Turkey can be shown as a model with these qualities. But, it should never be ignored that our nation will resist any approach, aiming to turn (Turkey) into a moderate Islam state model, accepted by other countries.''