- Title: TURKEY: TURKISH PM WELCOMES KOSOVO REFUGEES.
- Date: 8th April 1999
- Summary: KIRKLARELI, TURKEY (APRIL 7, 1999) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. GV: ENTRANCE OF THE CAMP 0.06 2. GV: HELICOPTER LANDING 0.15 3. GV/MV: TURKISH PRIME MINISTER BULENT ECEVIT CLIMBS OFF HELICOPTER/ CHILDREN (3 SHOTS) 0.34 4. GV/MV/CU/SV: VARIOUS OF ECEVIT AND WIFE GREETING REFUGEES (11 SHOTS) 1.29 5. scu: (SOUNDBITE) (TURKISH) TURKISH
- Embargoed: 23rd April 1999 13:00
- Keywords:
- Location: KIRKLARELI, TURKEY
- Country: Turkey
- Reuters ID: LVA27215EX8INCJEX5XB5WD0082L
- Story Text: Prime Minister Bulent Ecevit welcomed thousands of
cheering Kosovo refugees to a camp in western Turkey on
Wednesday and said he would do all he could to save their
homeland from violence.
"We call you our guests, not migrants, because we want you
to return to your homes as soon as possible.Count Turkey as
your second home," Ecevit told crowds at the camp, set in
woodland near the Bulgarian border.
Ecevit arrived at the Kirklareli camp by helicopter
during a break from campaigning for a general election on
April 18.
"As you can see everyone is clean," he said."There is
running water, they get three meals a day and so now the time
has come for them to be able to play.
The 73-year-old premier was applauded as he handed out
footballs to children who swarmed over the camp.
Turkey is sheltering nearly 3,000 Kosovo refugees at the
Kirklareli site and expects more planeloads to arrive soon.
NATO member Turkey, with close historical and religious
ties to the region stemming from 500 years of Ottoman rule,
has said it will accept some 20,000 of the refugees from camps
in Macedonia.
"I want to thank you, you saved us from hell," Zarife, a
teacher from Kosovo's main city Pristina, told Ecevit.The
prime minister was accompanied by his wife Rahsan, a political
force in her own right, and a crowd of cameramen.
The refugees began arriving on Monday, exhausted from a
traumatic journey through crowds and squalor in Macedonia
after being driven from their homes by Yugoslav police.
Two small Kosovo girls, one with a yellow plastic flower
in her hair, acted as translators for the prime minister as he
toured the prefabricated huts of the camp site.
"Kosovans love you very much," said a boy who ran up to
kiss Ecevit's hand.The moustached premier took off his shoes
before stepping inside a hut to see the metal beds, steel
lockers and plastic chairs resting on a bare concrete floor.
His administration says it has led the way in relieving
Macedonia of the burden of thousands of refugees.
"The people of Kosovo are our brothers.Their pains are
our pains...No country has done as much as Turkey to help the
people of the region," he earlier told an election rally in
the western town of Adapazar to passionate applause.
Turkish President Suleyman Demirel is to visit Albania and
Macedonia next week to review Turkish efforts to relieve the
refugee burden on two of Europe's poorest countries, the
Foreign Ministry said.
Turks had watched in impotent fury during the Bosnian war
of the early 1990s and have contributed military aircraft to
the NATO action against Yugoslavia for its treatment of ethnic
Albanians in Kosovo.
Ecevit was premier during the 1970s when he sent Turkish
troops into Cyprus.The 1974 invasion established Ecevit's
domestic reputation as a nationalist unafraid to send Turkey's
forces into action.
In February he confirmed that reputation when Turkish
special forces snatched Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan
from Kenya and brought him to Turkey for trial.Political
analysts say Ocalan's capture has boosted Ecevit's chances in
the polls although an Islamist group and two centre-right
parties also look strong.
- Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2015. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: None