Agora

Yay! Today is a day of happy tidings. From Politiken today:

Turkish Mediation in Prophet Crisis given the Brush-off

The Turkish Foreign minister suggests to the EU that they tighten their laws against offending religious sensibilites. Both the Danish and the Dutch Foreign Minister rejects the proposal.

The Turkish Foreign Minister, Abdullah Gül, tried helping Denmark moving beyond the Muhammed-crisis.
On a meeting of Foreign Ministers in Salzburg, he had been asked to open the debate about how to create better dialogue between the EU and the Moslem World.

“It’s time for Europe to facus on the bigger problems today and not let itself get consumed by problems less important in the bigger picture. Those bigger problems are, to name a few, poverty, extremism, anti-semitism and islamophobia,” Gül scolded.

“Europe’s greatest asset”
He warned tat the cartoon affair was about Europe’s prestige and that the world community mustn’t think that religion is not part of the European value set, when the opposite is the case.

“It’ s Europe’s greatest value and it should not be destroyed,” Gül said.

His speech circulated among Turkish and Danish journalists.

According to a Turkish journalist, especially one sentence was directed at Denmark:

“When we fail to stop overt fanatic manifestetations, we’re probably stoking the fires of those on the other side of the fance,” it said.

Per Stig pleased with distancing
Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller (Conservatives) was pleased that Gül distanced himself from radicalism.

But he didn’t think there were many other newsworthy items in the speech.

The only other thing of interest was an appeal to the EU-countries to consider tightening their laws against defamation of religious sensibilities, according to Per Stig Møller.

“I would ask you to examine your legislation to ensure that all religions are treated equally, Islam included,” Gül said.

No Need
The Dutch and Danish Foreign Ministers denied any such need.

“We have Freedom of Speech. That means that Mr. Gül can say whatever he likes and I can say what I feel like. And I think [Gül’s idea] is superflous,” The Dutch Foreign Minister, Bernard Bot, said to Dutch journalists.

Per Stig Møller also emphasised that the idea was redundant:

“We have that already. All EU members have legislation like that”.
[…]

See more here:
Gatewaypundit
EU observer
Zaman Online
Reuters