SENATOR MENENDEZ COMES THROUGH FOR US AGAIN ON AMBASSADOR JEFFREY'S STATEMENT ON TURKEY AND ECHR REPORT ON TURKEY AND HUMAN RIGHTS

(New York, NY) Senator Menendez comes through for us again in response to Ambassador Jeffrey's recent statement that "Turkey...is a peaceful country. It doesn’t invade its neighbors. It has security concerns in Cyprus...".

Below the Q & A we've attached the European Court of Human Rights report on Turkey - for your information. It is a separate attachment to this release.

Senator Menendez addressed this statement as per his question to Secretary Clinton at today's hearing. His question and her response is below:

MENENDEZ: ...As you know there are more than 40,000 Turkish troops occupying Cyprus. No one in the world accepts the proposition that they are there to protect Turkish Cypriots from Greek Cypriots. Even the European Parliament, on February 10, passed a resolution calling for the immediate withdrawal of Turkish troops from Cyprus. Yet, Madame Secretary, America’s Ambassador to Turkey Ambassador Jeffrey said very recently in a newspaper interview that Turkey has “security concerns on Cyprus”. Surely he can’t be supporting this rationale of keeping Turkish troops on Cyprus. Did he misspeak?



CLINTON: ...With respect to Cyprus, we strongly support the continuing negotiations under UN auspices for a bizonal, bicommunal resolution on Cyprus. We have been heartened by some of the intense consultations going on between the Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot leadership but there’s a long way to go. And I think that, I can’t speak for our ambassador, but I assume that he was stating the opinion of the Turkish government; that is something that we do not ascribe to, because we want to see the entire Cyprus situation resolved, but we certainly understand that is the stated position of the Turkish government, not the American government.

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TURKEY IS THE MOST FREQUENTLY CONDEMNED COUNTRY IN THE HISTORY OF THE ECHR


Agos Weekly
Feb 21 2010
Istanbul

The European Court of Human Rights (ECHR) has reported that from its foundation until the end of 2009, Turkey came first in violation judgements. Accordingly, 20 percent of all violation judgments were entered for Turkey among the 47 signatory states. Namely, 2,295 judgments were entered for Turkey. For the same period, 2,021 judgments were entered for Italy and 862 judgments were entered for Russia.

In 2009, Turkey was again the worst human-rights violator, with 356 cases out of a total of 1,625. Russia followed Turkey with 210 judgments against it and then came Romania and Ukraine, with 168 and 126 judgments respectively.

In terms of "right to life," 217 judgments were entered by the ECHR since 1959, in which the states were directly or indirectly responsible for a death. Russia led in this category with 115 judgments, while Turkey came second with 76. Among the remaining 45 states, seven of the state-related death cases concern Bulgaria and 19 cases concern other countries.