I should like to repeat what I stated recently in the Jeddah Economic Forum in Saudi Arabia: It won't be the religion, but rather the world-view of some of its followers that shall be made current.

Invariably, also a Palestinian state should live side by side with Israel within recognized and secure borders and the security and prosperity of the Palestinian people must be guaranteed

According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background.

The Muslim world and its subset the countries of the Middle East have been left behind in the marathon of political, economic and human development. For that, there is a tendency to blame others as the primary cause

Similarly, it is argued that the culture of Islam is incompatible with democracy. Basically, this conventional perspective of the Middle East thus contends that democracy in that region is neither possible nor even desirable

There is an attempt to tarnish Turkey by using press freedom when it is in fact measures taken against terrorism, i dispute this. Nowhere in Europe or in other countries is there a media that is as free as the press in Turkey.

There is now a scourge that is called Twitter