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Istanbul hosts meeting of Partners Forum for United Nations Alliance of Civilizations

31 May 2012 13:04 (UTC +04:00)

Istanbul. Mais Alizadeh â€“ APA. The next meeting of the Partners Forum for United Nations Alliance of Civilizations has started in Istanbul today. APAâ€™a Turkish correspondent reports that Prime Minister of Turkey Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan delivered a keynote speech at the meeting.

Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan underlined the significance of the Alliance of Civilizations project to the globalizing word and said that the countries have no rights to get back to their boundaries: â€œEach of us is a part of the globalizing conscience. People, who were killed in Libya, Norway, Palestine and Syria, can not be considered as special cases. We must strengthen the cooperation within the Alliance of Civilizations to solve all these problems. Indulgence of oppression in itself means oppression. Being on the side of oppression is to accept this oppression.â€

The Prime Minister underlined the importance of holding the meeting in Istanbul and noted that the city has been repeatedly surrounded and it has been even temporarily occupied over the last 150 years.

Recep Tayyip ErdoÄŸan underlined that the Alliance of Civilizations project needs financial aid to fulfill much more its function within the globality and called the countries and international organizations to render financial aid to the Alliance of Civilizations. He said that it is important to prepare special mechanism for it.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon delivered a speech at the meeting. He drew attention to the launching of next 5 years activity program and said that itâ€™s most important feature was a prevention of budget difficulties: â€œWe do great work with less money within this projectâ€. The secretary general touched on Syria issue too.

Ban Ki-moon noted that one of the important goals of this project was a solution of problems of national and religious minorities. He noted the importance of strengthening the activity of community leaders in the countries, underlined the necessity of participation of universities, scientific research centers, political scientists in these processes.

In his speech, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili noted the importance of Turkeyâ€™s co-chairmanship in this project. He said that Turkey turned into leader not through its physical force, but with economy and democracy. Saakashvili noted Turkey helped and supported Georgia after restoration of its achievement.

Speaker of Azerbaijani Parliament Ogtay Asadov also delivered a speech at the forum. He said that Azerbaijan always supported the project of the Alliance of Civilizations. He underlined that the Alliance of Civilizations was one of the important cooperation projects of the world. Asadov informed about the international meetings which has been held in Baku since 2007 within cooperation with the Council of Europe and the other international organizations. At the same time, Asadov spoke about Baku meeting of the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation in 2009, World Forum on Intercultural Dialogue held in Azerbaijan in April, 2011 by the decision of the Azerbaijani President.

The meeting will continue its work tomorrow.