Erdogan cancels visit to Argentina: Kemal Ataturk bust not to be erected in Buenos Aires
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is traveling about Latin America, cancelled his visit to Argentina. The reason is that the municipal authorities of capital city of Argentina Buenos Aires, pressed by the Armenian community, gave up the idea of erecting Kemal Ataturk bust.
Erdogan was to have left Brazil for Argentina on May 31. The Turkish Prime Minister was to meet with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner in Buenos Aires. Besides, he was to attend Kemal Ataturk bust unveiling ceremony in Buenos Aires George Nuber park.
However, as early as before Erdogan started his travels, at the end of the previous week, after the protests of Argentine Armenian community representatives, Buenos Aires Municipality decided to annul Kemal Ataturk bust erection ceremony.
According to Radio Liberty, besides making the mentioned decision, Municipality representative Diego Santilli also apologized to the Armenian community for a ''hard mistake,'' as he classed it, and promised to disallow to unveil the bust.
Naturally, official Ankara's response to the decision was harsh. According to Turkish press, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu spoke to his Argentine counterpart George Taiana and called on him ''to stay loyal to his commitments.’'
In addition, the Turkish Foreign Ministry issued a statement accusing the Armenian organizations of Argentine of ''hostile'' intervention.
''Argentine government acted so, pressed by Armenian circles having hostile disposition towards Turkey,'' the statement read.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, for his part, had a phone conversation with President Cristina Kirchner and demanded reconsideration of the decision.
In response, the Argentine President said that though she understands Turkish side's position, nevertheless Argentine government cannot intervene into municipal authorities' decision.
''It would be a violation of Argentine Constitution,'' the President said.
Therefore Prime Minister Erdogan cancelled his visit to Argentina and will leave Brazil for Chile instead.
It should be mentioned that the news attracted the attention of the leading world media.
Thus, BBC besides presenting the fact also touched upon the Armenia-Turkey relations. ''The Armenian organizations want Turkey to recognize the mass slaughters as genocide, and Argentina is among the countries having done so,'' BBC reported.
Mohammedan countries' media also commented upon the news. The Al Arabiya TV channel touching upon the news and the Armenian Genocide issue wrote: ''The Argentina-Turkey relations worsened again.''
And Turkish Zaman touched upon the adoption of the bill on recognition of the Armenian
Genocide in Argentina. The newspaper mentioning that the respective legal act was adopted in 2006 November and ratified by Argentine President of that time Nestor Kirchner (current President Cristina Kirchner's husband: Panorama.am) tries to ground this Latin American country's position:
''Argentina has the third biggest Armenian community after the U.S. and France,'' the newspaper wrote. It should be mentioned that indeed, the Argentine Armenian community is the third in the Western Hemisphere and, in general, it comes after not only U.S. and France, but also Russia, Iran, Georgia, Syria, and, according to some data, also the Ukraine.