ANKARA - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Monday that those who loved and concerned for Turkey should protect the values of the Republic and democracy and avoid from involving in unnecessary discussions and tension which could harm the national integrity and solidarity.
Addressing the meeting held in Turkish Language Institution upon the 65th death anniversary of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern and secular Turkish Republic, Erdogan said he was proud to say that Turkey overcame hesitations, artificial discussions behind and it started to talk about production, justice and development on the 80th foundation anniversary of the Turkish Republic.
Noting that national unity came the top among the inheritance, concept and values which Ataturk left behind, Erdogan said that the idea of national sovereignty constituted the basis of the progress recorded towards the goals of Republic and democracy.
Stating that another inheritance from Ataturk was ''unitary state'', Erdogan said that unitary state was a concept including administrative and political dimensions and also a sociological content. He stated that unitary state was based on a concept which was regarded as an inseparable and equal component of every individual bound to Turkish Republic with citizenship tie.
Erdogan said that another component which Ataturk gave to Turkey was secularism and stated that secularism was considered as the separation of state affairs from religious affairs. Erdogan said that it was a true, but deficient explanation and noted that a dimension of secularism was freedom of religion and conscience. Erdogan said that this freedom was one of the fundamental components of modern human rights concept and stated that the second dimension of secularism was the state's and political authority's having equal distance to all believes and identities in the society.
Erdogan said that national sovereignty, unitary state and secularism formed trivet of the Republic and stated that Ataturk's Republic Project was a historical initiative for construction of democratic political order.
(ÖŞ-EÖ-AÖ) 10.11.2003