70 percent of Turkey’s citizens favored the EU; today it is only 50 percent. If you ask if they want Turkey to become an EU member, 60 to 65 percent still say yes. But if you ask: Do you believe Europe will accept Turkey, 60 percent say no.

When there is no such thing as religious culture and moral education, serious social problems such as drug addiction and racism fill the gap.

We will not leave this nation at the mercy of YouTube and Facebook.

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.

I don't want to use the term "nuclear weapons" because those people in Iran who have authority say they are not building nuclear weapons. I make an appeal to the countries who do have nuclear weapons. They don't consider them a nuclear threat. But let's say a country that doesn't have nuclear weapons gets involved in building them, then they are told by those that already have nuclear weapons that they oppose [such a development]. Where is the justice in that?

Our religion has defined a position for women (in society): motherhood. Some people can understand this, while others can't. You cannot explain this to feminists because they don't accept the concept of motherhood.

In this context, social consensus, and institutions that embody this consensus, must be made effective in order for democratization not to be abused as a provisional instrument to establish an anti-democratic regime