Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz during a meeting...

Deputy Prime Minister Mesut Yilmaz during a meeting with the representatives of EU countries, said: "In a country that has suffered so much from terrorism and lost more than thirty thousand of its citizens to terror, at a time when separatist terrorism is still active and sufferings of the families of the victims have not yet cooled off, at a moment when the political exploitation could seem extremely attractive, the elimination of the death penalty for crimes of terror is the most dramatic measure once can imagine.
For those who do not face such challenges, this may seem as a simple and straightforward measure to align the Turkish legal system with the European norms. But you will all agree that in the context of Turkey this has been a major achievement."