“The savagery hurt not only Norwegians but all of humanity,” said Bağış during his visit to Norwegian Ambassador Cecilie Landsverk in Ankara on Thursday. “As a country that has suffered at the hands of Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK] terrorism for 40 years and emphasized that counterterrorism can only be effective with international cooperation, we are amongst those who feel the Norwegians' pain the most,” the minister was quoted as saying by the Anatolia news agency.
When members of the press reminded him of the egg protest by PKK sympathizers targeting Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan while he was on a visit to Norway, Bağış explained that the existence of the PKK within Norway was not discussed between officials during the visit but said he was with the prime minister at the time and they had to protect him with their coats in the absence of sufficient precautions against such close-distance encounters with sympathizers of an outlawed organization right outside parliament in Oslo.
“When we criticized the authorities that allowed such close-up demonstrations by sympathizers of the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by Norway, waving their flags and throwing eggs at the prime minister, Norwegian officials told us that such things were ordinary for them and that they tolerated it to avoid driving them underground,” Bağış stated and added, “The current situation just shows the distance that toleration has traversed.
In his concluding remarks, Bağış stressed the importance of international cooperation in fighting terrorism and indicated that counter action should be employed against all kinds of terrorists “without qualifying them as good or bad.”
In Norway, where fundamentalist Anders Behring Breivik massacred close to a hundred people, mostly teenagers, last week in what is claimed to be a politically motivated terrorist attack, people are left to battle the aftershocks of the bloody tragedy.
Prime Minister Erdoğan was the target of an egg assault in 2005 as he was in Oslo for an international meeting. Erdoğan criticized authorities for their lack of precautions at the time and Norwegian officials expressed regret over the incident.
