Recep Tayyip Erdogan

“A woman who abstains from motherhood saying 'I am working' means she is in fact rejecting motherhood.”

“It is impossible to preserve my friendship with people who are allegedly leaders when they are attacking their own people, shooting at them, using tanks and other forms of heavy weaponry.”

“In the process of the Arab Spring, we have unfortunately seen a development in Syria where the regime has been oppressing its people.”

“Attempts by one ethnic group to exercise sovereignty over another are not fair. It doesn't matter if that ethnicity is Kurdish, Turkish, Arabic, Chaldean or whatever.”

“Family planning, birth control, no Muslim family can practice such an understanding.”

“My visit to the United States has also given me the opportunity to emphasize the objective of establishing close and intensive links between the Turkish and American peoples, scholars and bu...”

“Similarly, gender-equality, supremacy of law, political participation, civil society, and transparency are among the indispensable elements that are the imperatives of democratization.”

“Before anything else, I'm a Muslim. As a Muslim, I try to comply with the requirements of my religion. I have a responsibility to God, who created me, and I try to fulfill that responsibilit...”

“Several experts on the Middle East concur that the Middle East cannot be democratized.”

“The purpose cannot be creating self-styled democracies, but rather encouraging steps that are conducive to establishing democratic rule at universal standards. Obviously, this would be a for...”

“We're really willing to see more and more U.S. entrepreneurs conducting investments in Turkey. I'm optimistic for the future.”

“Paramount is the need to secure human rights. The form of rule should be such that the citizen does not have to fear the State, but gives it direction and confidently participates in its adm...”

“Turkey will be in Cyprus forever.”

“I am one of the first political leaders officially declaring that anti-Semitism is a crime. I expect an official declaration that Islamophobia is a crime against humanity as well.”

“Therefore, the question is not whether such democratization is possible, but instead how to meet the yearning of the masses in the Middle East for democracy; in other words, how to achieve d...”

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

“A confidence problem exists on the part of the people of the region who desire democratic rule in principle, but remain suspicious of both the fashion with which democratization is presented...”

“It is essential that policy instruments be developed that would firmly establish democratization on the basis of social consensus and enable transformation on stable grounds.”

“I regard the endorsement of both the objective and a method - which can differ from one country to another- of democratization by the parties in the region as a basic requisite of democratiz...”

“In this context, social consensus, and institutions that embody this consensus, must be made effective in order for democratization not to be abused as a provisional instrument to establish...”