DINK’S CASE TURNED BACK TO THE SAME CORNER

Discussions in European Parliament on Hrant Dink case, Armenian-Turkey-EU relations

By Roni Alasor / Lorin Sarkisian

Ararat News (ANP) – Brussels  - After six years of court hearings, trials and juridical procedures related to the assassination of the Armenian journalist Hrant Dink in Turkey, Dink’s family and lawyers decided to not attend the court hearings. The decision followed the release of one of the key suspects behind the murder, Erhan Tuncel. According Dink’s family and lawyers, the Turkish authorities have all the necessary information to carry out the investigation and to reveal the truth, but the state deliberately covers up the real responsible for the assassination of Dink.

 

Speaking in the European Parliament at the opening of a film-exhibition on the closed border between Turkey and Armenia, Dink’s widow, Rakel Dink said: “Hrant Dink has been killed in conspiracy by the Turkish deep state forces. During six years we gave to the Turkish justice a chance to find out and make a justice decision, having in mind all the information they keep in their hand. We gave chance hoping that maybe the mentality of the state and justice has been changed, but at the end we were disappointed. We are still in the same point like in 2007 when Hrant has been killed”.

“Hrant was one of the few brave Armenian intellectuals who decided to live in his country Turkey, but they also eliminated him. Today under every removed stone you find pain and suffering. In the last 30 years more than 40 000 people have been killed and thousands of mothers still cannot find the bones of their children to make for them a grave”, regretted Rakel Dink.

Closed borders, Iran-Azerbaidjan-Russia and Nagorno Karabakh

Rakel Dink also took part in the meeting between members of the European Parliament’s Delegation for relations with Armenia and Delegation for relations with Turkey chaired by Members of the European Parliament Helene Flautre and Milan Cabrnoch. Rakel Dink raised the question of the difficulty to imagine a closed border between two countries in the 21st century and stressed the importance of reforming the education system in Turkey, so that the new generations will grow in tolerance and mutual respect instead of being poisoned with every kind of extremism.

The participants in the meeting alongside with the speakers Cengiz Aktar, Professor of Political Science at Istanbul`s Bahcesehir University, and Richard Giragosian, Armenian political analyst and head of the Yerevan-based independent think tank Regional Studies Center, also discussed the problems related to the closure of the Armenian-Turkish border and the role of the Azeri, Russian and Iranian lobbies to block the relations between Turkey -Armenia and EU – Armenia to keep the current status quo.

During the discussion the Turkish Ambassador to EU Selim Yenel underlined that his country is willing to do the necessary efforts to solve the issue of the closed border, but it is important that all the parties involved take their responsibilities and cooperate in constructive way, including the solving of Nagorno Karabakh conflict, before the opening of the border.

Victor Biyagov, First Secretary of the Armenian Mission to the EU, pointed out that Armenia took the initiative to normalize relations with Turkey without any precondition, to establish diplomatic relations and open closed borders. But Turkey refused to ratify the Zurich Protocols.