ISTANBUL - Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Tuesday that there was an effort in recent years to associate terrorism with Islam, adding that he could not bear the expression 'Islamic terror'.
Erdogan made a speech during the breakfast held by Marmara University. He said that distressing events were experienced one after another in Turkey during a period in which people were preparing for celebration of Feast of Ramadan and those events worried people.
Erdogan said that there was an effort in recent years to associate terrorism with Islam, adding that it was duty of all society and every individual to spoil this trick. He said that he could not bear to hear the expression ''Islamic terror''.
Noting that everybody knew what lied beneath those efforts, Erdogan said that they wished that those efforts would be given an end. He added that what would break this chain of efforts was people's solidarity, unity and cooperation.
Erdogan said that Anatolian lands, which had become the cradle of many civilizations, produced love, brotherhood, unity and cooperation. He added that terrorism would not take shelter in these lands.
Erdogan said that terrorism would not catch the targets it was looking for in these lands and added that he believed that it would disappear rapidly.
Noting that security forces were in solidarity more than ever while following that issue, Erdogan said that they were exerting efforts to find the source of those incidents.
Erdogan said that confidence and stability milieu was caught in Turkey in spite of those incidents.
(GC-AÖ) 25.11.2003