ADANA - State Minister Mehmet Aydin said on Saturday that government's resolution and pace in Turkey's EU membership bid surprised everybody.
Addressing the conference on ''Turkey-Islam-EU'' held by Adana Platform in southern Adana province, Aydin said that discrimination based on religion would be very wrong. Aydin stressed that the view that ''Islam can't get along with democracy'' was unacceptable, too.
Noting that Turkey's EU membership concerned the whole Islam world, which was 1 million, and EU member countries had to take into consideration this fact, Aydin said that ''EU is a community of values. Many circles claim that Islam can't get along with these values of EU, which is a Christian society. This is a prejudice. But there is no such understanding in Turkey and among Turkish politicians. We must fight with this belief at the intellectual level...Certainly we have differences, but there are important cultural similarities between Christianity, Judaism and Islam, too.''
Aydin said that the government had a stable policy about EU membership issue. He added that Turkey has never been apart from Europe and Turkey has been exerting efforts to enter EU for 40 years and important steps were taken. He said that the government's determination and speed on the path to EU membership surprised everybody. He added that more than 75 percent of people supported Turkey's membership to EU in Turkey and if Turkey's membership was rejected, it would mean the rejection of a very big and colorful culture.
Adana Governor Kemal Onal, Great City Mayor Aytac Durak and some deputies of Justice and Development Party (AK Party) also attended the conference.
(GC-Öª) 28.02.2004