Erdogan lauds tolerance as ‘Garden of Religions’ opens in Turkey

Agence France Presse
Dec 8 2004

BELEK, Turkey, Dec 8 (AFP) – Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan
pledged Wednesday that his government would remove any remaining
obstacles to religious freedoms in Turkey as he opened a complex of
Muslim, Christian and Jewish worship sites.

The “Garden of Religions” in the Mediterranean resort of Belek,
which contains a mosque, a church and a synagogue, was inaugurated
to underscore inter-cultural tolerance at a time when Turkey is
under fire from the EU for failing to fully respect the rights of
its non-Muslim minorities.

Speaking at the ceremony, Erdogan said that religious tolerance was
a heritage of the Ottoman Empire and quoted edicts by Mehmet the
Conqueror, the sultan who took Istanbul in 1453, ordering respect
for non-Muslims.

“Owing to this great historical experience, Turkey is today the
guarantor of peace and brotherhood in its region,” he said.

“Of course, we still have deficiencies and we are expending efforts
to overcome them in the shortest possible time,” he added.

Visiting Dutch European Affairs Minister Atzo Nikolai, whose country
currently holds the EU presidency, members of the diplomatic community
in Ankara as well as religious leaders of Turkey’s Greek, Armenian
and Jewish minorities attended the ceremony.

“People will be able to freely practice their religions in this
center. This is a very important message,” Nikolai said, quoted by
Anatolia news agency.

Belek is a major touristic center on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast,
which attracts millions of foreign holiday-makers each year.

“The EU will continue to encourage reforms in Turkey,” Nikolai said.
“There could be frictions sometimes, but the reforms Turkey has
undertaken are encouraging.”

The Dutch minister was in Turkey for consultaions with Turkish
leaders in the run-up to an EU summit on December 16-17, at which
Ankara is expected to be invited to begin membership talks, though
under tough conditions.

Leaders of Turkey’s non-Muslim minorities hailed the inauguration
of the “Garden of Religions,” but not without some barbed remarks on
legal snags restricting their activities.

“Catholics are able to practice their religion in Turkey but do not
have (property) rights over churches. I hope they will have that right
one day,” Father Alphonse Sammut, a representative of the Catholic
community said, according to Anatolia.

Armenian Orthodox Patriarch Mesrob II, for his part, said that
non-Muslim places of worship should be opened in all major Turkish
cities.

“This should be done either by rennovating historical sites or by
building new ones as the one here,” he said.