The European Parliament’s rapporteur on Turkey Ria Oomen-Ruijten was a speaker at the round table meeting held by USAK with the partnership of the German Marshall Fund. İhsan Bal Head of the USAK Science Committee, Mehmet Tiraş Vice President of USAK, other USAK experts and GMF Ankara Office Director Özgür Ünlühisarcıklı hosted the conference at the USAK conference hall.
The conference was attended by Member of the Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee Nursuna Memecan, CHP Vice President Faruk Loğoğlu, CHP MP Aykan Erdemir and many diplomatic representatives of other countries, bureaucrats, NGO representatives, experts and journalists.
Rapporteur Oomen-Ruijten began her speech emphasizing the importance of the Copenhagen Criteria, the rule of law, EU-Turkey relations, the democratic performance of Turkey, hunger strikes and the death penalty.
Oomen-Ruijten pointed out that “rule of law means having independent and impartial justice, human rights and democracy. And Turkey had to implement the Criteria and acquis but also should have independent and impartial justice.” The Rapporteur also touched upon the hunger strikes and indicated that “hunger strikes are unacceptable in democracies.”
Regarding the death penalty, Rapporteur Oomen-Ruijten said that “Turkey signed two different international conventions on abolishing the death penalty. This debate is funny and I don’t believe that the death penalty will come again.”
(The Journal of Turkish Weekly)
