[Turkey] CHP deputy insists on DNA tests for president

ANKARA - The dispute between a main opposition deputy and President Abdullah Gül over the latter's ethnic origin took on another dimension with the request of a DNA test from Gül to prove his ethnic background.

Canan Arıtman, the İzmir deputy of the Republican People's Party, or CHP, said Gül had Armenian roots, which is why he has not openly rejected the apology campaign carried out by a group of intellectuals. In a counter-statement Gül said his family was 100 percent Muslim and Turk and filed a lawsuit against Arıtman.

"Today, ethnic origin does not gain legal and scientific validity through family trees, but through DNA tests," Arıtman said in her written statement late Monday. "Birth records during the Ottomans were based on declarations and while recording non-Muslims, the state used to write a Muslim name as the father's name. Thus, nobody can prove their ethic identity through a family tree."

Arıtman said it was Gül's prerogative to file a suit against her and that she was not after anyone's DNA results, but in the event of a judicial process...