By Arthur Hakobyan

Member of the ruling Justice and Development Party Cimel Cicek is elected Speaker of the Turkish Parliament gaining 322 votes.

The runner up Tunja Toskay from opposition Nationalist Movement Party got 50 votes, Zaman newspaper reports.

MPs from Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party boycotted the sitting, while members of Republican People’s Party did not participate in the vote.

Cimel Cicek is known for his anti-Armenian stance. During his tenure as Justice Minister a criminal case was opened against Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink who was later assassinated in Istanbul.

Last year at his meeting with businessmen, former Deputy Prime Minister Cimel Cicek spoke of terrorism in the 1980s. In this context he pointed out close ties between the Armenian “terrorism” and the PKK terrorism. He claimed some of the PKK members are not circumcised, which means they are Armenians.