ERDOGAN: ''I BELIEVE IT IS GLOBAL RESPONSIBILITY OF NEWSPAPERS AND MEDIA IN GENERAL TO CONVEY UNIVERSAL MESSAGES TO WHOLE WORLD''
ISTANBUL - Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said that he believed conveying universal messages to the whole world was global responsibility of newspapers and mass media in general, adding, ''defending peace on every condition is the best response that can be given to the prejudice that sees newspapers as inciter of war and clashes in categories due to concerns over circulation.''
Making opening remarks of 75th Congress of the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and 11th World Editors Forum (WEF) at the Lutfi Kirdar International Congress and Exhibition Center in Istanbul on Monday, Erdogan expressed his pleasure with convention of WAN and WEF in Turkey and he considered it meaningful that those meetings were being held in Istanbul during a period that world missed peace, love, friendship and brotherhood much.
Recalling that Istanbul had always been an important point of intersection of the humanity during its civilization journey and many civilizations had met in Istanbul throughout the history and spread to whole world after they had been resynthesized according to needs, Erdogan said that people of different faiths and cultures who spoke different languages were still living together in Istanbul and in Turkey in a natural environment of harmony, freedom, tolerance and peace.
Erdogan stressed that he believed people living under same welkin had more reasons for peace than those for war.
Noting that showing respect to people was their principle and Turkish culture saw individual as core and summary of the universe, Erdogan stated that faith and cultural differences couldn't and shouldn't be reason for hatred and violence among peoples.
Recalling that prominent author Dostoyevski's words saying, ''each person is responsible of everyone against everything'', Erdogan said, ''I believe that it is global responsibility of newspapers and mass media in general to convey these universal messages to the whole world. Because the world is getting smaller thanks to communications, but humanitarian responsibility should increase. Defending peace on every condition is the best response that can be given to the prejudice that sees newspapers as inciter of war and clashes in categories due to concerns over circulation.''
''Since the global mass media has been bringing the humanitarian dimension of clashes onto the agenda, it has started to come to a true picture that war and terrorism are not the solution but evil means of destruction of ideals of the humanity. If the world's mass media manages to be the wisdom and conscience of humanity, I believe that it would do the most charitable work in the world,'' Erdogan added.
WAN and FEW unofficially convened on Sunday in Istanbul.
(MS-AÖ) 31.05.2004