By Gokhan Ergocun
ISTANBUL (AA) - Türkiye's Foreign Economic Relations Board (DEIK) gathered foreign diplomats for the Memory-July 15 event ahead of the anniversary of the failed coup bid in the country.
The event was organized at a museum in Istanbul which exhibits objects from the 2016 coup bid.
Speaking at the event, Nail Olpak, the head of DEIK, said that the event is being organized to remember the unfortunate events that unfolded on July 15, 2016.
"I believe fostering better understanding and trust between us is an important concept to improve our bilateral economic relations," he said.
"We will not forget the countries which empathize with us and those who cooperate with us in those challenging times," he said.
Talip Kucukcan, a Turkish academic, said at the event that Turkish people paid a heavy price for strengthening democracy.
Recalling that Türkiye had a single-party system until the 1950s, he said the country gradually moved toward the multi-party system.
"But the first intervention in Turkish political life took place in 1960, which was very critical, which was very tragic, because the elected prime minister [Adnan Menderes] of the country and two of his ministers were actually sentenced to death in the 1960s," he said.
He stressed that the media, politicians, and civil society had no reaction against this sentence, so the country faced another military takeover in 1980.
"Then we look at the reactions of the people, there was a similar picture; there was a huge silence," he said.
On July 15, 2016, there was another attack to democratic institutions in Türkiye, which was quite different from the previous ones, he said.
He said: "This time, for the first time in our history, they attacked people on the ground, that is one of the major differences between the previous attempts.
"And for the first time, not only in Türkiye, but for the first time in human history, people stopped the coup, but they paid a price; we lost more than 250 people and thousands of people were injured."