AZERI LEADER SAYS ISLAM SHOULD NOT BE LINKED TO TERRORISM

Azad Azarbaycan TV, Baku
4 Sep 06

Presenter] Azerbaijan will restore its territorial integrity. As we
noted earlier, President Ilham Aliyev said this at the Youth Forum of
the Organization of the Islamic Conference [OIC] held in the Turkish
city of Istanbul. The president said that today Islam is identified
with terrorism, which is a completely wrong policy.

[Passage omitted: Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan’s speech at the forum]

In his speech, President Ilham Aliyev focused on boosting ties and
contacts between the young generation of the [OIC] member states. The
president stressed the importance of building dialogue and cooperation
and added that this was being done successfully.

[Ilham Aliyev, shown addressing the forum] The Youth Forum has already
started working actively. Enough has been said here today about the
forum’s work and its future plans. There are very nice plans and
programmes. I am sure that all these plans will be implemented.

[Correspondent] Ilham Aliyev drew the attention of the participants
in the forum to the dangerous trend of forming a negative opinion
of Islam. The president noted that cooperation between young Muslims
could contribute to Muslim unity all over the world.

[Aliyev] We should demonstrate to the world that Islam is a religion
of peace. Islam must never be identified with terrorism.

[Correspondent] In his speech, the president particularly spoke
about the Nagornyy Karabakh conflict. Over 3,000 innocent people
were killed in over 30 bloody crimes committed by Armenian terrorist
organizations in the early 1990s. As a result of Armenia’s occupying
policy, Azerbaijan has been subjected to economic, political and
cultural terrorism.

[Aliyev] We have always been the side subjected to terror. We want to
restore justice, we want to restore our territorial integrity and we
will achieve this because international law is on our side, justice
is on our side. We should be more active. We should take advantage
of all opportunities – political, economic, diplomatic and others –
to restore justice.

[Correspondent] The president rated highly the publication of a book
about the Karabakh conflict in the Arab language by the Youth Forum
of the organization. Ilham Aliyev also drew the attention of the
participants in the forum to education, health and sport issues.

Today’s youth should be educated, healthy and spiritually pure. Ilham
Aliyev said that this policy had been successfully pursued in
Azerbaijan and spoke about prospects for young people and tasks facing
them. The president also demonstrated the Azerbaijani government’s
support in this regard with a specific step.

[Aliyev] It is very important that our youth are both educated,
skilled, modern and at the same time observe all national and religious
traditions and are brought up in the spirit of patriotism so that
our countries can develop. To that end, the Azerbaijani government
has allocated 100,000 dollars to the forum’s budget. I am confident
that this small contribution will help in your work.

[Azartac news agency, Baku, in Azeri 0730 gmt 4 Sep 06 reported that
on 3 September, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held a meeting
with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Istanbul. They
discussed issues of mutual interest, the report said.]