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Gallipoli fee plans "offensive": RSL
Charging a fee to visit Gallipoli in Turkey would be as offensive as making people pay to visit a cemetery, RSL Victoria president Major General David McLachlan said.
His comments follow conflicting reports about Turkish plans for an admission fee to the Gelibolu Historic National Park, the site of Gallipoli's battlefields where Australians and New Zealanders lost their lives in World War I.
"It's a sacred site and you should be able to visit without paying," Maj-Gen McLachlan said.
"You don't pay to visit a cemetery in Australia and anywhere in the world."
Maj Gen McLachlan said he failed to understand what benefit a fee would provide to Turkey.
"A lot of people go to Gallipoli on a pilgrimage and there is a lot of economic gain to Turkey and Gallipoli," he said.
"I don't see what this (an admission fee) is going to do other than upset a lot of people."
Maj Gen McLachlan said the RSL would call on the federal government to stop any moves in Turkey to charge an admission fee to anyone visiting Gallipoli.
"It's not a matter of the cost, it is a matter of Gallipoli being a sacred place, not only to Australia and New Zealand, but to the Turks and British," he said.
A spokeswoman for Veterans Affairs Minister Danna Vale said the reports of an admission fee were false.
Prime Minister John Howard said the Turkish government had not consulted Australia about such plans.
"It seems at this stage that the reports are being discounted but I'd like to get to the bottom of it in a calm way through the normal channels," Mr Howard told radio 3AW.
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*Vomits*
Can we please refrain from putting a fucking price tag on everything!
