One gets the impression from this report that about all Faruk Çelik could do was to keep repeating the refrain, "Turkey is a secular, democratic country," and hope it would stick if he said it enough. At least a few reporters seemed to be having none of it.
"Turkey not becoming an Islamic country, state minister says," from the Hürriyet Daily News, January 14:
State Minister Faruk Çelik on Friday said Turkey is a democratic, secular country and its position, as it continues to work toward EU membership, is very clear and not open to any controversies.
Çelik spoke to foreign journalists gathered at the Prime Ministry's office at Dolmabahçe Palace on Friday on a variety of subjects, from the so-called "alcohol prohibition" to Ayşe Sucu's removal from the Turkish Religious Affairs Foundation.
However, new restrictions on Turkey's alcohol laws and the "shifting axis" issue dominated the press conference. Çelik and Public Diplomacy Coordinator Ibrahim Kalın replied to many questions about the new law, including queries on whether it was against human rights and freedoms and whether tourism would be affected.
Çelik said the government aimed to control unprotected sales but not to prohibit the consumption of alcohol in hotels or any place with a license to sell alcohol.
"The law favors hotels; it doesn't discriminate against them, thus it will not affect tourism," Kalın said.
Kalın said the legal age to purchase alcohol in Turkey is still 18, not 24 as has been reported in the press. "In a public event, people could bring gallons of alcohol without licenses; this sometimes causes people to open fire in the air." A reporter asked the pair, in response, "Instead of alcohol restrictions, is the government considering limiting individual armament?" Her question was not answered.
In response to journalist's observation that Turkey looks like a Sunni Islamic country in light of the new restrictions, Çelik said the fact that the majority of the country is Muslim is another issue but the state is a democratic and secular country....
OT
Ameena Meer denies Park51 is a mosque then goes on to explain why they're building a mosque on Ground Zero. Trivialises Ground Zero.
Islamic countries have marinated the minds of their citizens in hatred against the West, especially in the last decade. Since I, a Westerner, have no desire to be seen as the enemy, I would never set foot in an islamic country.
Turkey's radical regime is now seen as a loose cannon among civilized nations and only a Westerner with Stockholm Syndrome would set foot there.
There was a time when Turkey was a place I wanted to visit, but no more. I am no moth desiring to fly into the fire.
Is Turkey's Constitution based on principals of Islam? If so, it is Sharia-friendly and the global jihad model for making a "secular" country Islamic through civil and criminal law.
:) went to turkey last year, great trip, wonderfull people, rich culture, beautifull mosks and no problem at all.
Went to America the year before, great trip, bad people, appalling culture. Nice musea i have to admit.
Block Turkey from EU membership and boot them out of NATO. They are not a reliable ally.
'Beautiful mosks', eh?
Did you visit the Hagia Sophia, the great Church of the Holy Wisdom?
It was for one thousand years the most beautiful church in Christendom... until it was desecrated and fouled by the invading, occupying, mass-murderous Muslim hordes who broke into it on Black Tuesday and - just like the jihadist mass-murdering human sacrificers in a church in Iraq last year - drenched its floors and walls with the blood of the priests and the women and the children and the elderly who they found worshipping Jesus there.
*Then* they pillaged it and defaced its beautiful icons and turned it into a mosque where they could stick their bums in the air as they cringe and grovel before the Arab Muslim god of blood and war who delights in the screams of raped women and in beheadings and disembowellings and rivers of human blood.
And the current government of Turkey keeps it as a 'museum' and - dog in the manger style, since it's not formally a mosque - *refuses* to give it back to the Greek Christians **whose ancestors designed and built it in the first place**, and FORBIDS any Christian prayers there. (Of course, they have no way of hearing what is spoken in the heart and soul of any Christian who enters it as a 'tourist'; I think there are probably more Christian prayers said in the Hagia Sophia than any Muslim suspects.).
There is no way I would visit rapidly-sharia-izing Turkey.
Hizbullah leaders released in Turkey
http://www.news.az/articles/turkey/29302
(ROAR)