PRESIDENT GUL DENIES ARMENIAN ROOTS

Baku, 22 December,(AzerTAj)President Abdullah Gul released a statement yesterday about his family's ethnic origin in response to a Republican People's Party (CHP) deputy Canan Ar?tman`s attempt to link the president's attitude toward a recently launched apology campaign for the Armenian killings at the hands of the late Ottoman
Empire in 1915 to his ethnic roots.
In his statement yesterday, Gul announced that his mother's side, the Satoglu family from Kayseri, and his father's side, the Gul family also from Kayseri, are Muslim and Turkish, according to centuries of written genealogy records.
"I respect the ethnic background, different beliefs and family ties of all my citizens and see this as a reality and also the wealth of our country with its imperial history. I also would like to emphasize that all my citizens are equal to one another regardless of any differences. No one has any superiority whatsoever over another one. Everybody has the equal and same rights under the guarantee of our
Constitution," the statement read. "I am proud of our country, which has reached this level of understanding."
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