Thursday, 24 September 2009
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Wednesday his government's democratic move would be a long process with different aspects from terrorism problem to unemployment.
"We aim to implement our democratic move with short, medium and long term targets. It is impossible to carry out all of them at the same time. We have to do it slowly," Erdogan told a conference at Princeton University.
He said the Turkish government was dealing with lots of problems but stated that terrorism was the major problem of Turkey.
Erdogan said his government took several steps regarding the Kurdish issue including the launching of 24-hour state-run television broadcast in Kurdish language, private Kurdish language courses and an academic institute for Kurdish language.
"We are dealing with problems of not only our Kurdish citizens. There are more than 30 ethnicities in Turkey," he said. "We are standing at the same distance to all of the problems.
At his speech, Erdogan also talked about Turkish foreign policy and gave information about Turkey's relations with neighboring countries Iraq and Iran.
He said Turkey attached great importance to Iraq's territorial integrity and also said his government was trying to encourage Iran to follow a more transparent and cooperative attitude on its nuclear program. Erdogan also explained Turkey's efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Syria.
Erdogan spoke about Turkey's relations with the European Union. He said Turkey was kept waiting at EU's door like no other countries that had become members.
"Unfortunately, Turkey's membership has been delayed with lame excuses," he said. "We want justice, only justice".
