Turkish nationalist MP “accuses” Kurdish mayor of “being Armenian” –

Turkish MP Ozcan Yeniceri (left) has “accused” the newly elected mayor of Agri Sirri Sakik of “being Armenian”. Ozcan Yeniceri is a memember of the ultra-nationalist Nationalist Movement Party (MHP).  

Yeniceri made a scandalous statement by once again using the word “Armenian” in an offensive context, reported Kanalb website of Turkey.

“I don’t know whether Mr. Sakik is Armenian or Kurdish, but being an enemy to [Kazım] Karabekir Pasha means being a friend of the Armenian bandits,” the nationalist deputy stated.

Sakik had announced that his first task as Mayor of Agri will be to remove the statues of Kazım Karabekir—the commander of the Eastern Army in the Ottoman Empire at the end of World War I—from the city streets and to rename the city streets named after him.    

Sirri Sakik is one of the Turkish parliament’s Kurdish members who has recognized the Armenian Genocide.

Sırrı Sakık a native of Mush Province, is a Turkish-Kurdish journalist and politician, and a member of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey for the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP). Sakık was previously a journalist for Cumhuriyet and Vatan. Sakık is the brother of former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) commander Şemdin Sakık. His brother Abdulsamet Sakık, a Democracy Party (DEP) politician who was the party’s chair in Gaziantep, was assassinated on 3 November 1993.