There exists an unmistakable demand in the Middle East and in the wider Muslim world for democratization.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan (born 26 February 1954) is the President of the Republic of Turkey.

Quotes

• In other words, the bar should be maintained at the level of a pluralistic and participatory democracy.
  • As quoted in Erdogan: "Democracy in the Middle East, PluralIism in Europe: Turkish View", The Turkish Weekly (October 12, 2004)

• But foremost, I do not subscribe to the view that Islamic culture and democracy cannot be reconciled.
  • As quoted in Erdogan: "Democracy in the Middle East, PluralIism in Europe: Turkish View", The Turkish Weekly (October 12, 2004)

• Everyone should unconditionally accept that Israel is an indispensable element of the Middle Eastern mosaic.
  • As quoted in Erdogan: "Democracy in the Middle East, PluralIism in Europe: Turkish View", The Turkish Weekly (October 12, 2004)

• There exists an unmistakable demand in the Middle East and in the wider Muslim world for democratization.
  • As quoted in Erdogan: "Democracy in the Middle East, PluralIism in Europe: Turkish View", The Turkish Weekly (October 12, 2004)

• There are people who say that "Gül can't be my president". These people don't have good manners for and they should renounce their Turkish citizenship foremost this man will be chosen democratically by the people.
  • As quoted in "Gül'ü tanımayan vatandaşlıktan çıksın !", Haberturk (August 21, 2007)

• Every instigator or madman, who will dare to raise his hand against the government, let him be sure that the government will chop it off.
  • Speech delivered after the military coup, 2016

• These descriptions are very ugly, it is offensive and an insult to our religion. There is no moderate or immoderate Islam. Islam is Islam and that’s it.
  • "PM Erdogan: The Term “Moderate Islam” Is Ugly And Offensive; There Is No Moderate Islam; Islam Is Islam", Memri Turkish Media Blog (August 21, 2007)

• We are all human beings. (original: Hepimiz insanız)
  • As quoted in "Erdoğan Almanya’da: Hepimiz insanız", NTVMSNBC Anasayfa (February 9, (2008))

• Mr. Peres, you are older than I am. And your voice is genuinely loud. I know that it is because you are, in fact, in a psychology of feeling guilty, thus you better know that I will not sound that loud. And when killing is the case, you know how to kill very well. I know how you killed the children on the beaches, I know how you shot them. Two ex-PMs of your country once told me important things. You have had such prime ministers who said, "When I enter Palestine on a tank, I feel happy — in a different way." You have had PMs who said to me "I feel happy when I am on a tank while entering Palestine." And you give me those numbers. I would release their names, in case some of you might be curious of. I also condemn those who acclaim this cruelty, because I think it is a crime against humanity as well.
  • As quoted during a discussion panel at 2009 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland about the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, in "Turkish PM storms off in Gaza row", BBC (January 29, 2009)

• There is but one alternative for Turkey. Either African barbarism, under Arabian direction, will burst around its head like an avalanche, or else it must re-establish strong leadership, thus putting twenty million heroes between itself and Africa and gaining a breathing spell for the accomplishment of its social regeneration.
  • As said during the EU-Turkey Summit

• ...it's not possible for a Muslim to commit genocide
  • November 2009 "Sudanese President Bashir's visit to Turkey in limbo", Hurriyet Daily News (November 8, 2009)
  • Also translated as "it is not possible for those who belong to the Muslim faith to carry out genocide".

• Those who do not want to take a side will be eliminated (read as: irrelevant for) from the process.
  • As quoted in "Bosses Unions Clash over Referendum Results", Today's Zaman (2010)

• Cave of the Patriarchs and Rachel’s Tomb were not and never will be Jewish sites.
  • As quoted in "'Rachel's Tomb was never Jewish'", Al Wattan (March 7, 2010)

• In my country there are 170,000 Armenians. Seventy thousand of them are citizens. We tolerate 100,000 more. So, what am I going to do tomorrow? If necessary I will tell the 100,000: OK, time to go back to your country. Why? They are not my citizens. I am not obliged to keep them in my country.
  • As quoted in "Shut Up About Armenians or We'll Hurt Them Again", Slate (April 5, 2010)

• There is no difference between killing a baby in its mother's stomach and killing a baby after birth.
  • As quoted in "Turkey PM Erdogan sparks row over abortion", BBC (June 1, 2012)

• I consider abortion to be murder. No-one should have the right to allow this to happen.
  • As quoted in "Turkey PM Erdogan sparks row over abortion", BBC (June 1, 2012)

• There is a trouble called Twitter, the finest lies are here. Nowadays, social media is actually the headache of societies.
  • As quoted in "Erdoğan: Twitter denilen bir bela var", NTV (June 2, 2013)

• Our religion [Islam] has defined a position for women: motherhood. Some people can understand this, while others can’t. You cannot explain this to feminists because they don’t accept the concept of motherhood.
  • As quoted in "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: ‘women not equal to men’", The Guardian (November 24, 2014)

• You cannot place a mother breastfeeding her baby on an equal footing with men. You cannot make women work in the same jobs as men do, as in communist regimes. You cannot give them a shovel and tell them to do their work. This is against their delicate nature.
  • As quoted in "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: ‘women not equal to men’", The Guardian (November 24, 2014)

• What women need is to be able to be equivalent, rather than equal. Because equality turns the victim into an oppressor and vice versa.
  • As quoted in "Recep Tayyip Erdoğan: ‘women not equal to men’", The Guardian (November 24, 2014)

• As Muslims, we cannot overcome our difficulties without achieving unity in spite of our differences.
  • As quoted during the 13th Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) Summit in Istanbul, in "Islamic leaders pledge to combat sectarianism", Al Jazeera (April 15, 2016)

• A woman who says 'because I am working I will not be a mother' is actually denying her feminity.
  • As quoted in "Turkey's Erdogan says childless women are 'incomplete'", Al Jazeera (June 6, 2016)

• A woman who rejects motherhood, who refrains from being around the house, however successful her working life is, is deficient, is incomplete.
  • As quoted in "Turkey's Erdogan says childless women are 'incomplete'", Al Jazeera (June 6, 2016)

• Europe, you don't want us because the majority of our population are Muslim ... We knew it but we tried to show our sincerity.
  • As quoted in "In Turkey's tussle with the EU, Erdogan thinks he holds the cards", Reuters (June 22, 2016)

• You cried out when 50,000 refugees were at the Kapikule border... You started asking what you would do if Turkey would open the gates. Look at me — if you go further, those border gates will be open. You should know that.
  • As quoted in "Erdogan Threatens to Let Migrant Flood Into Europe Resume", The New York Times (November 25, 2016)

• I am calling on my citizens, my brothers and sisters in Europe. Don’t have just three children; have five. The place in which you are living and working is now your homeland and new motherland. Stake a claim in it. Open more businesses, enroll your children in better schools, have your families live in better neighborhoods, drive the best cars, live in the most beautiful houses. That's because you are the future of Europe. It will be the best answer to the vulgarism, antagonism and injustices made against you.
  • As quoted in "Erdoğan to Turks in EU: Have 5 children, you are the future of Europe", TurkishMinute (March 17 2017)

• If Europe continues this way, no European in any part of the world can walk safely on the streets. We, as Turkey, call on Europe to respect human rights and democracy.
  • As quoted in "Turkey's Erdogan warns Europeans 'will not walk safely on the streets' if diplomatic row continues", The Independent (March 22 2017)

Dialogues

About

• Erdogan once said that democracy for him is a bus ride. “Once I get to my stop, I’m getting off."
  • King Abdullah II of Jordan
  • Quoted by Jeffrey Goldberg, Bloomberg News, July 4, 2013.

• Turkey’s president is blackmailing the United States by threatening to curb his country’s support for the international coalition against the Islamic State. His goal: to ensure my extradition, despite a lack of credible evidence and virtually no prospect for a fair trial. The temptation to give Mr. Erdogan whatever he wants is understandable. But the United States must resist it.
  • Fethullah Gülen, "Fethullah Gulen: I Condemn All Threats to Turkey’s Democracy", The New York Times (July 26, 2016)

• How would the world respond if a European prime minister called for the mass deportation of all Turks? Yet Erdogan's xenophobic demagoguery attracted precisely no condemnation from Washington or Brussels. He probably overestimated the number of "tolerated" economic refugees from neighboring and former Soviet Armenia, but is it not interesting that he keeps a count in his head? And a count of the tiny number of surviving Turkish Armenians as well? The outburst strengthens the already strong case for considering Erdogan to be somewhat personally unhinged.
  • Christopher Hitchens, "Shut Up About Armenians or We'll Hurt Them Again", Slate (April 5, 2010)

• There was a young fellow from Ankara
  Who was a terrific wankerer
  Till he sowed his wild oats
  With the help of a goat
  But he didn’t even stop to thankera.
  • Boris Johnson wins The Spectator’s President Erdogan Offensive Poetry competition, 18 May 2016.

• Turkey doesn’t understand that, for the United States, buying a sophisticated Russian air defense system is a major national security issue that can’t be papered over. But Americans don’t understand that all their tough talk about leveling sanctions against Turkey if the Russian arms sale goes through only plays into Turkish leaders’ hands politically...
  Speaking at a forum on Ankara-Washington relations hosted by the Hudson Institute in Washington, Hudson fellow Blaise Misztal said that, to President Tayyip Erdogan and his political coalition partners, “sanctions and kicking you out of 'NATO is a winning policy” because it fuels long-standing and growing anti-Americanism in their nationalist-leaning array of parties. Since 2014, and particularly after a failed coup attempt in 2016 that many Turks believe was known in Washington before it was launched, Erdogan “is becoming closer to [Vladimir] Putin, [[[Bashar al-Assad|Bashir al] Assad]], Iran and China” to burnish his nationalist credentials, Misztal said. As an example of how this plays out, Erdogan told his parliament Wednesday the nation is “passing through a very critical period, from economy to security.” He warned about plotters still inside its borders and their outside supporters. At the same time as Erdogan spoke, a Turkish newspaper reported the defense ministry is sending troops to Russia to receive familiarization training for the S-400 air defense system.
  • The U.S. Naval Institute News, Panel: US/Turkey Dispute Over Buying Russian Air Defense System Has Deeper Roots by John Grady, (22 May 2019)

See also

• Turkish proverbs
• Atatürk
• Turgut Özal
• İsmail Enver

External links

• Erdogan receives hero’s welcome
• Erdogan cheered in Tripoli square

References