nappyheadedHO (Login kamandar) The Conquerors (Turkey)
Quote:
Good ties with Turkey important to Medvedev
Kamilzhan Kalandarov
Newly elected Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev will seek to maintain friendly relations with Turkey as well as with other Muslim countries, according to Kamilzhan Kalandarov, the leader of the Muslim human rights organization al-Khak and the head of the Our Russia civil society group.
In a visit to the Today’s Zaman office in İstanbul yesterday, Kalandarov expressed his belief that the recent Russian general election has been a very important one for Russia’s Muslims. “Russia’s Muslims have high hopes for Medvedev, who has worked as the primary aide of the prime minister while leading many important national projects. He is young and he is experienced in law. At the same time, he is a very experienced lawyer. He is also a very close friend of Putin. We think Medvedev will follow Putin in that path,” he said.
“Islam has always been and will remain a religion that is protected by Russia. That’s the way Putin saw it,” Kalandarov said. “I think that approach will remain in place. Russia will play a key role in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC). Medvedev, I believe, will continue on Putin’s path and improve the relations between Russia and other Muslim nations,” he said, adding that Russia has a Muslim population of 20 million.
Kalandarov noted that relations between Russia and Turkey were particularly important. “There are a large number of businessmen from Turkey in Russia. A deep cultural exchange has taken place in the past few decades through marriages between Russians and Turks. Turkey is home to a large number of Russian students,” he said.
Explaining that Turkey is important for Russia, Kalandarov said: “I have met with Putin a couple of times. He is very warm in his approach toward Muslims. In his policies, relations with Muslim countries are greatly valued. He also has great respect for Turkish literature and culture. His relationships with President Abdullah Gül and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are very strong. I am sure that he will continue to be involved in politics. This will be great, both for Russia and for Russia’s neighbors. He also really trusts Medvedev. He will finish things that he did not have time for in his own term together with Medvedev.”
In response to a question on whether Russia under Medvedev would consider joining Nabucco, an EU and US-backed project to build a natural gas pipeline from the Caspian Sea region to Europe, Kalandarov said: “I’m pretty sure that business relations between the two countries will improve in the energy sector. There can’t be rivalry between the two. We would not want to see any problems between Russia and Turkey. Russia is one of the biggest exporters of energy. It has large reserves of natural gas and petroleum. Europe depends greatly on Russia for its energy needs. This should not turn into a war. To the contrary, it should continue in a spirit of compromise and tolerance.”
He implied that the world should simply accept and come to terms with its dependence on Russian gas, saying: “Not a single European country can leave Russia out of the energy sector. No country in the world has Russia’s energy reserves. Everybody should try to maintain good relations with Russia.”
He also said there are attempts by some third parties to damage the friendly relations between Russia and Turkey.
05.03.2008
CELİL SAĞIR İSTANBU
The Putin-Medvedev duo was an excellent chance for Turkey to improve her relations with our Northern neighbors. 2000-2012 may be called the golden age of Turkish-Russian relations in the history books in future...2008 was already declared the "Turkish Culture Year" by Russia...
This message has been edited by kamandar on Mar 6, 2008 1:05 AM
