Turkish President has addressed PACE

Turkish President Abdullah Gul told participants in the winter session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) on Tuesday (January 25th) that Turkey will never accept allegations it committed genocide. “If we live with the past, nobody in Europe will be able to look the others in the face. What we must do is look together into the future,” Gul said. He stressed reforms in his country aimed at strengthening democratic and legal standards, but conceded more needs to be done. He said Ankara is doing everything it can to prevent illegal migration to Europe, and discussed religious freedom, as well as efforts to give the Kurdish minority more rights.