Founder of new Turkish party eyes building bridges with Armenians

Wednesday, December 8, 2010

VERCİHAN ZİFLİOĞLU

ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News

Numan Kurtulmuş, founder of the People’s Voice Party, or HSP, visited Tuesday the Armenian Yedikule Surp Pirgiç Hospital Foundation in Istanbul in a symbolic move to enhance dialogue with members of Turkey’s minorities.

“Throughout the history of the Republic, many [social] ruptures have occurred,” Kurtulmuş said. “Because of these, minorities living in these lands felt as though they were aliens. It is time to break [this cycle].”

Kurtulmuş told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review that his visit was specifically designed to enhance relations with the Armenian community.

The significance of the hospital-foundation, which is widely regarded as one of the most important institutions of the city’s Armenian community, has been growing in recent years as many prominent politicians, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have paid visits to highlight the community’s importance.

Kurtulmuş met Bedros Şirinoğlu, the president of the foundation and a prominent businessman, visited the hospital’s museum and spoke with the elderly residents of the attached nursing home.

“[Turkey] wants to know more about the communities it calls minorities,” Şirinoğlu told the Daily News, adding that the country also wanted to take steps to close the gap between the majority and its minorities.

The HSP leader, a veteran Istanbul politician, also said both the events of 1915 and the Sept. 6-7, 1955, pogroms were “extremely painful events” and “provocations.”

“With Armenians, with Greeks and with all our ethnic backgrounds, we are a garden of roses,” he told the Daily News. “All these provocations were aimed at destroying this garden.”

The Sept. 6-7 1955 pogroms targeted Istanbul’s Greek minority and involved nationalist riots triggered by false rumor that the Turkish consulate in Thessaloniki, Greece – the house where Mustafa Kemal Atatürk was born in 1881 – had been bombed by the Greeks. The rioters, however, also targeted Armenians and Jews. In the aftermath of the provocation, thousands of minorities left Istanbul and Turkey in fear.
No more ‘gavur’

Kurtulmuş said his party was working to draft a constitutional reform package.

“When we come to power, we will take steps to make sure all our citizens are constitutionally equal,” he said, promising that the derogatory term “gavur” (infidel), which is used for non-Muslims, would be banned under an HSP government.

Şirinoğlu said the visit was “extremely important” for the Armenian community. “But what is really important is the policy that will be implemented in power,” he said. “I hope [a possible HSP government] will have the tolerance and vision that the AKP [Justice and Development Party] government has toward minorities.”

Kurtulmuş and his supporters recently split from the Saadet (Felicity) Party and the “National View” line led by veteran Islamist politician Necmettin Erbakan. The HSP is regarded by some circles as a “Muslim left” organization, though the party denies the label.