Egemen Bağış

Egemen Bağış in Ankara , 2007

Egemen Bağış (born April 23, 1970 in Bingöl ) is a Turkish politician of the Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi (AKP) and from 2009 to December 25, 2013 the first Turkish European Minister .

Life

Bağış family is originally from Siirt Province . His father, Abdullah Bağış, was the mayor of Siirt between 1974 and 1979 . Egemen Bağış lived in the United States from 1985 to 2002 and studied Human Resources in New York . In November 2002 he came to the Turkish parliament for the AKP . He is considered a reformer and a staunch supporter of the EU.

In January 2009, Bağış was appointed the first Turkish Minister of State for the European Union , which was upgraded to Minister for Europe in July 2011 in the following cabinet . He took over the leadership of Turkey's accession negotiations with the European Union , which until then had been with Foreign Minister Ali Babacan . On December 25, 2013, as part of a cabinet reshuffle in the wake of a corruption scandal, he was replaced by Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu as European Minister .

On March 18, a telephone recording was anonymously published on YouTube. There, the Hürriyet journalist Metehan Demir speaks to Egemen Bağış about his recently tweeted verses from the Koran and asks whether he got them from a small book. Bağış replies that he would simply google them with keywords and "throw them away" via Twitter ( salla gitsin ). While Metehan Demir simulates the Arabic language, thinks up a fictional verse from the Kuran Bakara sura with an ironic undertone and comments on it with "This Bakara is good", Egemen Bağış replies with a laugh, "Makara is good" (A ridiculous rhyme Bakara). After the publication, Metehan Demir apologized for the conversation on Twitter, Egemen Bağış spoke of a "montage".

Bağış is married and has two children.

Positions

EU accession

Bağış warned German Chancellor Merkel on June 20, 2013 that she should not play with joining the EU . You will "see that those who meddle in the affairs of Turkey do not come to a promising end," he was quoted by an agency.

Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said on the same day that if Bağış had been reproduced correctly - it will still be checked - then he, Westerwelle, would be “surprised and disturbed”. This is a language that should not be used together. There are reminders to Ankara's address. A government should “not fear” the emergence of a civil society , but rather be happy about it - “especially if one wants to go to Europe”. A few days later, Bağış relativized his statement and assured him that his threats in the days before had been a "misunderstanding" and that he had only wanted to express his disappointment with the reactions from Germany.

Resolution of the Cyprus conflict

Bağış pleads for a solution to the Cyprus conflict in which both sides can come to an agreement. When asked by a journalist whether the annexation of Northern Cyprus to Turkey could become an issue, the minister replied that this could also be an alternative.

Gezi Park protests

During the protests in Turkey in 2013 , Gezi Park next to Taksim Square was forcibly cleared on June 15, 2013. Bağış said in an interview that anyone who enters Taksim Square will be treated like a terrorist.

Denial of the Armenian Genocide

Bağış denied the genocide of the Armenians in January 2012 at the World Economic Forum in Davos and on the sidelines of a concert by the singer Sezen Aksu in Zurich . After these statements appeared in various Turkish media, they were collected by the Society Switzerland-Armenia and handed over to the Public Prosecutor I of the Canton of Zurich . In February 2012, the Zurich public prosecutor's office initiated an investigation into Bağış for violating the racism penal norm . Even after the investigation began, Bağış stood by his denial of the genocide and reiterated it. In an interview with Welt Online , he demanded that “Germans should open their archives and let historians evaluate the material”. After the investigation began, the Swiss Ambassador to Ankara , Raimund Kunz, was summoned to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Turkey on February 6, 2012 to deal with the matter.

Awards

Bağış was awarded the Commander of the Order of Merit of the Italian Republic in 2011 . In 2005 he received the Order of Merit in Officer's Class.

Web links

Commons : Egemen Bağış  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Homepage

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Turkey is shaken by corruption scandal . Time online. Retrieved December 26, 2013
2. ↑ Original video on Youtube: [1]
3. ↑ Emine Kaplan: Bağış'tan 'bakara makara' savunması , Cumhuriyet, April 4, 2014 [2]
4. ^ "Warning from Turkey: 'Germany shouldn't play with our EU accession'" , Spiegel Online , June 20, 2013.
5. ↑ spiegel.de June 20, 2013: [3]
6. ^ Berlin, Ankara trade protests in EU row , Hürriyet Daily News. June 22, 2013. Accessed June 23, 2013
7. ↑ CNN Türk from March 5, 2012
8. ↑ Swiss radio and television from June 16, 2013
9. ↑ Stefanie Bolzen: Genocide against Armenians: Berlin should help Turkey out of a genocide tight spot. In: welt.de . February 7, 2012, accessed October 7, 2018 . 
10. ↑ http://www.suedostschweiz.ch/politik/turkischer-minister-im-visier-der-justiz
11. ↑ Genocide denial: Zurich justice investigates Turkish European minister. In: derStandard.at. February 6, 2012, accessed December 8, 2017 . 
12. ↑ http://www.tagesschau.de/ausland/genozidleugnung100.html ( Memento from February 9, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
13. ^ "Italy gives Turkish minister order of merit" ( Memento of June 5, 2011 in the Internet Archive ), Today's Zaman , June 3, 2011.