Turkish FM says Plato, Gandhi influenced his intellectual thinking

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, named one of the top 100 global thinkers by the influential US magazine Foreign Policy has said his thinking as an intellectual was influenced by, among others, the classical Greek philosopher Plato and Indian leader Mahatma Gandhi.

Davutoğlu, who is ranked seventh in Foreign Policy's list of the top 100 intellectuals in 2010, is now in Washington, D.C., to attend an event organized by the magazine and have talks with senior US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.

In an interview with Foreign Policy, Davutoğlu said Plato “has interesting things to say about ideals and practice.” He said Plato was a “master” for Turkish scholars as well. “He is not only a Greek thinker; he is our thinker, because if you read the works of Ottoman scholars of the 16th century, all of these Greek scholars were addressed as ‘our masters.' So, for us, they represent the history of all traditions, and theirs are the values of humanity,” he said.

Davutoğlu praised Gandhi, the leading political and ideological leader of India during the Indian independence movement, as “a practitioner and a visionary trying to use new and unconventional methods to achieve political objectives.”

Davutoğlu, the architect of Turkey's policy of “zero problems with neighbors,” was included in the list “for being the brains behind Turkey's global reawakening.”


/World Bulletin/