Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Democracy is like a streetcar. When you come to your stop, you get off.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

If you're the leader, you have to communicate the message of immortality to your people. Because I believe if a leader hides behind a rock, then the people will hide behind a mountain.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Islam is a religion. It is not an ideology. For a Muslim, there is no such thing as to be against modernity. Why should a Muslim not be a modern person? I, as a Muslim, fulfill all the requirements of my religion, and I live in a democratic, social state.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

We have never done anything to stop freedom of expression or freedom of press.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Our country and our nation have again only one message to those who attack us - you will not succeed!

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Every country needs a strong leader in order to progress.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

There is no difference, where aims are concerned, between a terrorist with a gun and bomb in his hand and a terrorist who has dollars, euros, and interest rates.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

If we believe in a democratic system, we have to accept the will of the people.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

I consider personally the election of Barack Hussein Obama to have very great symbolic meaning. A Muslim and a Christian name - so in his name there is a synthesis, although people from time to time want to overlook that, and they do it intentionally.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Islamophobia emerged from the Western countries, and this is a challenge that we all together need to surmount.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

We, as Turkey, call on Europe to respect human rights and democracy.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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 responsibility. But I try now very much to keep this away from my political life, to keep it private.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

If the E.U. is going to make Turkey a full member, we are ready.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The foundations of democratic transition should be laid in accordance with a sincere and committed strategy that is supported by various policy tools, and implemented wisely.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

Nazism is still widespread in the West.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

I am a person who is inclined to define relations between individuals based on principles.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

According to this view, democracy is a product of western culture, and it cannot be applied to the Middle East which has a different cultural, religious, sociological and historical background.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan
Recep Tayyip Erdogan

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 an anti-democratic regime.