From the Times of Malta, with thanks to Ali Dashti:
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has rebuffed comments by a top Vatican official that Muslim Turkey should drop its quest to join the European Union on cultural grounds, saying the papal state has no say in the matter.
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, doctrinal head of the Roman Catholic Church, said in a magazine interview this week that Turkey should seek its future in a grouping of Islamic nations rather than try to join a European bloc with Christian roots.
“The Vatican is a religious state. It is not an EU member. We discuss and assess (our EU bid) with EU member countries,” Turkish newspapers quoted Mr Erdogan yesterday as saying….
Mr Ratzinger’s comments, in which he said Turkey had always been “in permanent contrast to Europe” and noted that the Ottoman Empire once threatened Vienna and fought wars in the Balkans, have caused anger in the Turkish press.
Anger? Why? What part of that paragraph is untrue? They just don’t want the dhimmis to remind them of the facts of the matter.