CHP leader’s telegraph congratulating Amasya on the 88th anniversary of its freedom from enemy forces evokes confused response from the governor’s office because the province was never occupied
Eyüp KARTAL
Baykal tells Amasya it was occupied 88 years ago
Friday, September 28, 2007
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Voices from the capital of Sufism 
Suspect confesses, accuses others SAVAŞ TUTAK
AMASYA – Doğan News Agency
A telegraph congratulating the Black Sea province of Amasya on its 88th anniversary of freedom from enemy yoke by the Republican People's Party (CHP) created confusion in the city, which had no idea they had been occupied.
In the telegraph, Deniz Baykal, chairman of the CHP, saluted the people of Amasya and noted he shared their enthusiasm.
While the governor's office kept silent about the telegraph dated Sept. 20, the leaking of its contents created some puzzlement. Some thought it was sent mistakenly, but the CHP said the message has been sent to the Amasya Governor's Office every year for the past five years and the information was based on the Interior Ministry's database.
CHP spokesman Bora Buyruk said he could not understand why the telegraph generated such reactions. "There is nothing wrong in the message. We will continue to send it in the future," he said. He said CHP was Turkey's party and knew which province was freed when.
Officials said Merzifon, 40 kilometers from Amasya, was under British occupation for a few months in 1919, but their evacuation was not celebrated.
The British occupied Merzifon on Mar. 15, 1919 after the end of the First World War. Residents staged a protest rally on June 16, 1919 against the Greek occupation of İzmir a month earlier. Turkey's founder Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, who was in Merzifon at the time as the inspector general of the Ottoman forces in Anatolia, reported the matter to authorities in Istanbul. He later cut all ties to the Ottoman government and assumed the leadership of the independence movement in Anatolia.
After a series of protests, the British evacuated Merzifon on Sept. 27, 1919.
On its Web site , the CHP issued a statement noting that their information was based on Interior Ministry data and the telegraph had been mistakenly presented to the governor's office earlier than usual.