Holy Koran in different languages, dialects to be rewritten in Turkey

"It is the outcome of an ugly propaganda," Turkey's Premier Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a ceremony to mark the establishment of the Directorate of Religious Affairs in Ankara.

Erdogan also referred to the government's national unity and brotherhood process, and asked all Turkish institutions, non-governmental organizations, intellectuals and the Directorate of Religious Affairs to take active role in that process.

The Turkish prime minister said efforts were under way to preach and write a Holy Koran in different languages and dialects.

Erdogan said the Directorate of Religious Affairs could explain in the best way the national unity and brotherhood project.

The premier said Turkey would solve its problems by talking and discussing them with each other.

On January 15, Turkey's Interior Minister Besir Atalay held a press conference in which he detailed the democratic initiative.

Atalay said different languages and dialects could be spoken between the inmates and their relatives in prisons. He also said Turkey would establish a quartet mechanism within the scope of its democratic initiative.

Minister Atalay named those four mechanisms as an independent Turkish Human Rights Agency, an Anti-Discrimination and Equality Board, a commission where people could report complaints about security forces, and ratification of the optional protocol to the Convention against Torture.


/World Bulletin/