Kenan Evren Quotes

Ahmet Kenan Evren was a Turkish politician and military officer, who served as the seventh President of Turkey from 1980 to 1989. He assumed the post by leading the 1980 military coup.

On 18 June 2014, a Turkish court sentenced him to life imprisonment and demotion of his military rank down to private, from army general, for leading the military coup in 1980, obstructing democracy by deposing the prime minister Süleyman Demirel, abolishing the parliament and the senate and abolishing the constitution. This sentence was on appeal at the time of his death.Evren died at a military hospital in Ankara on 9 May 2015, aged 97. Wikipedia  

✵ 17. July 1917 – 9. May 2015
Kenan Evren: 5   quotes 0   likes

Famous Kenan Evren Quotes

“All freedoms provided by democracy are for those who believe in it. Can the rights and freedoms of millions of virtuous people who believe in democracy be safeguarded if those who seek to destroy it abuse rights and freedoms to achieve their goals?”

An Uneasy Honeymoon, Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,952783-2,00.html (Sep. 29, 1980)
Said Evren in defense of the decision to take power after the 1980 military coup.

“All my trust in the politicians had been rubbed away.”

On 17 September 1980 http://books.google.com/books?id=XW7bJ0b3kyEC&pg=PA43&dq=Kenan+Evren&lr=&client=firefox-a&sig=ACfU3U25I1osEHZanEArEIRSNYhVUys7NQ#PPA43,M1, five days after the coup, Evren comments on the political leaders of the standing political parties.
From Turkey: Challenges of Continuity and Change by Meliha Benli Altunisik, (p. 43, Routledge, 2005).

“Many axes are being kept under cover, waiting in ambush, ready to pounce, when we resign. Have no worries. We will deliver this homeland to you perfectly clean, as it was in Atatürk's time.”

Strong Army Medicine, Time. http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,922169-2,00.html (Dec. 08, 1980)
Remark by Evren at a 1980 meeting of the Journalists' Association of Turkey.

“Turkey serves as an anchor of democracy, freedom, and stability in a region in turmoil. Your own Thomas Paine once wrote, 'Those who, expect to reap the blessings of freedom must… undergo the fatigue of supporting it.' Let me say that in Turkey, we do not feel fatigued by our support of the Western allies because we know that by supporting the allies, we may all continue to reap the blessings of freedom.”

US Department of State Bulletin, Sept, 1988 http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1079/is_n2138_v88/ai_6813102/pg_2?tag=artBody;col1
From a statement made in a joint press conference with Ronald Regan during the Turkish president's 1988 trip to Washington, D.C.

“I sometimes feel jealous of countries like the U. S. and Great Britain that have two neighbors. … When you have two neighbors, you have two problems. When you have eight neighbors, you have eight problems.”

The Turkish Times, (News section, April 1, 2002, Year 14 No. 297) http://www.theturkishtimes.com/archive/02/04_01/index.html
Remarks from a statement responding to the announcement of the Kenan Evren Eminent Scholar Chair in Turkish Studies at Florida Atlantic University.

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