gunduz-aktan-kitap-soyledikleri-ve-yazdiklari

SÖYLEDİKLERİ VE YAZDIKLARI
Commission on Human Rights, 50th Session,
6th Meeting, The right of peoples to self-determination
and its application to peoples under colonial or alien
domination or foreign occupation
Mr. AKTAN (Observer for Turkey) said that the Israeli-
Palestinian agreement of 13 September 1993 was an historic step
towards achieving a lasting solution to the conflict in the region.
The determination of the parties and the progress achieved in the
talks between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization
with a view to giving effect to the interim agreement gave every
reason to be hopeful about the outcome. As a country belonging
to the same region, Turkey followed the peace process closely
and would not fail to contribute to it if necessary.
The recent emergence of ethno-nationalism and tribalism made
it even more necessary to clarify the content of the concept of selfdetermination
and its relationship to the territorial integrity and
political unity of sovereign States, which were equally important
principles of the Charter. The provisions of the Vienna Declaration
of 25 June 1993 were thus both welcome and timely. Paragraph 2
of the Declaration reaffirmed the principle of self-determination
and stated that denial of the right of self-determination was a
violation of human rights. The paragraph made a distinction,
however, between the right of self-determination of peoples under
colonial or other forms of alien domination or foreign occupation,
on the one hand, and countries which encompassed people of
different ethnic origins, on the other.
Such a distinction was well-founded as peoples under colonial
domination or foreign occupation had never had the opportunity to
express freely their views about their own future. By contrast,
people of different ethnic origins living in a democratic sovereign
Gündüz Aktan
163