RABAT - Turkish Parliament Speaker Bulent Arinc has said that Palestinian issue should be solved immediately and stressed that not only Islam world, but all the states believing in honor of humanity should launch initiatives to solve this problem.
Abdelwahed Radi, the speaker of the House of Representatives of Morocco, hosted a dinner in honor of Arinc on Monday.
Arinc stated that those who staged terrorist attacks in Casablanca on May 16, 2003 and in Istanbul on November 15-20, 2003 and March 9, 2004 claimed that they staged those attacks on behalf of religion especially Islam and noted, ''however, our religion is based on principles of peace, friendship and tolerance. Religion cannot accept such barbarous murders that are crime against humanity. Those who staged such attacks should know that they harmed our religion.''
Stating that Turkey suffered much from terrorism, he said that Turkey was against every kind of terrorism. Arinc noted that they always defended that all countries should have solidarity and cooperation in fight against terrorism and Turkey was doing its utmost on this path.
Arinc said that Turkey reacted to recent Israeli attacks against civil people in Gaza and stressed that Turkish government and parliament condemned harshly killing of civilians and invited international public opinion to stop this massacre.
''Palestinian issue should be solved immediately. Not only Islam world, but all the states believing in honor of humanity should launch initiatives to solve this problem. To this end, we appreciate efforts of King Mohamed VI of Morocco as the chairman of Jerusalem Committee of Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC),'' he said.
Referring to recent developments in Iraq, Arinc said, ''U.S. soldiers' inhuman tortures against Iraqi people in prisons created outrage in the whole world. Our government and parliament released statements to condemn those incidents of torture. We decided to hold a special session at our parliament to discuss recent developments both in the Middle East and in Iraq on May 25.''
Arinc expressed his wish that the problems in Iraq would be resolved under territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country.
''Any attempt to spoil Iraq's territorial integrity will bring forth unpredictable jeopardies in the whole region. Such an unacceptable development will create extremely serious consequences for the whole region,'' Arinc added.
Earlier in the day, Arinc met with chairmen of parliamentary groups and Morocco-Turkey Inter-parliamentary Friendship Group Chairman Najib Boulif.
On May 25, Arinc will meet with Prime Minister Driss Jettou.
Arinc will visit Casablanca and Marrakech.
Arinc and the accompanying delegation will depart from Morocco on May 28.
(EÖ-UK-AÖ) 25.05.2004