SABAH- Columnist Okay Gonensin writes on Deputy Prime Minister Devlet Bahceli’s press conference. A summary of his column is as follows:
Nationalist Action Party (MHP) leader Devlet Bahceli made his expected announcement yesterday. In a long speech, Bahceli criticized everyone who openly supported Turkey’s EU bid and particularly the press. His statement was filled with blanket accusations and lacking any specific meaning such as ‘terrifying distortion,’ ‘wrong and dangerous mentality,’ ‘dividing Turkey into two as those for and against the EU,’ ‘weakening the position of our country,’ and ‘strengthening the grounds for ethnic discrimination.’ The MHP leader accused some journalists and writers by name. Bahceli’s speech is the product of an old policy bereft of any projects for the future and unaware of the dangers Turkey is facing today and will be encountered in the future. A mentality which is unaware of the goings-on in the world and the EU, the social, economic and legal changes through which the member countries have passed, and trying to hold society in fear is now saying that it will continue to hold the country’s future hostage. This is the quite frightening mentality. The only concrete proposal in Bahceli’s speech concerns the situation of Ocalan. The Ocalan case is more important for Bahceli than all the other questions in Turkey put together. He is right as this is the mentality which has brought Ocalan to the state he is in and the MHP has reached this place thanks to Ocalan. It is unfortunate that those who lack a plan for the future of millions of people cling to Ocalan and base their policies on him. Tomorrow 175 institutions representing Turkey will respond to Bahceli. The representatives of workers, civil servants, small businessmen and other professions will have one thing to say to Bahceli. That is that they want to live in an advanced society, and they do not desire their children to face the same problems they did, and therefore they favor Turkey’s admittance to the EU.
SOURCE: OFFICE OF THE PRIME MINISTER, DIRECTORATE GENERAL OF PRESS AND INFORMATION