Former Turkish premier denies stories about making public state secrets

ISTANBUL (A.A) - December 27, 2011 - A former Turkish prime minister denied on Tuesday stories about making public state secrets. Mesut Yilmaz said the stories published in some Tuesday's newspapers were just a misinterpretation. "The article is totally distorted," Yilmaz told reporters at Istanbul's Ataturk Airport before flying to the United States. Some newspapers published stories regarding Yilmaz's remarks about some state secrets, discretionary funds, a report on a traffic accident that revealed mafia-police-tribe relationship, publicly known as Susurluk scandal, and forest fires. "I made the necessary statement to Anadolu Agency this morning, I think Greek friends have been in a hurry to react," he said. Yilmaz said what he meant was forest fires in Turkey, and there were some intelligence and assessments that serious forest fires in Turkey in 1990s were linked with Greek secret organization. "I said that publishing these allegations before they were proved would be wrong for our relations with Greece, and therefore they should be evaluated within the scope of the state," Yilmaz said. Yilmaz also said, "unfortunately, the issue was totally distorted for sensation purposes." Some newspapers quoted Mesut Yilmaz as saying that "Turkey made a forest fire retaliation to Greece." According to papers, Athens reacted to Yilmaz's remarks and Greek papers wrote stories that "Turkey's National Intelligence Organization (MIT) was behind the forest fires in the Aegean in mid-1990s." and "Prime minister confessed." The papers wrote that Turkey should illuminate the incident and compensate Greece's losses. Also, they wrote that Athens would file a lawsuit regarding Yilmaz's remarks that "setting forests on fire in Greece was a state secret."