During his speech at the third meeting of the Strategic Vision Group “Russia – Islamic World”, Yasar Yakis, former Minister Of Foreign Affairs of Turkey, co-founder of the Justice and Development Party, said that “Islam is Russia’s traditional religion despite the opinion in the West”.
I would like to thank the administration of the Russian Federation and Mr. Popov particularly for a wonderful organization of the forum. I would like to thank the leadership of the Russian Federation in general and the leadership of the Chechen Republic for this wonderful hospitality that we have received since yesterday. I would like to express our gratitude to the government of the Chechen Republic through its Deputy Prime Minister, Mr. Khakimov.
On my way to Grozny, I expected to see this city in ruins because this is how it has been portrayed in mass media for decades. But today we saw Grozny completely restored. It is a very beautiful city.
Today during our visit to the memorial of the first president of the Chechen Republic, we admired the beautiful landscapes of Chechnya.
Also I would like to thank the Strategic Vision Group “Russia – Islamic World”, which launched this initiative almost a decade ago, since 2007.
From the beginning one of the main goals of the initiative was to show Islam as a Russia’s traditional religion despite the opinion of the West. We saw this again here in Grozny. And we saw it before during our visit to Tatarstan and last year during the visit to Bukhara organized by the Group, where Islam first appeared 11 centuries ago. This is the past.
Now let’s return to the Russia’s current achievements and its role in the Islamic world.
The Islamic world, and the Middle East particularly, and Syria particularly are going through a crisis. It is probably the largest crisis in Syria’s history. And Russia plays its important role in achieving a political settlement of the Syria crisis. It might be difficult to settle the Syria conflict as well as the Middle East conflict in general in the short-term.
But Russia’s way is practical and positive. Such an approach will most likely be successful.
Now Turkey cooperates with the Russian Federation after years of disputes on the Syria crisis. I am pleased to note that our countries decided to cooperate in order to settle the Syria crisis. It is another matter how they manage to cooperate, because there are other stakeholders who have their own approach to the crisis.
But I am pleased to mention that Russia and Turkey have reached a point where they began to cooperate on this issue. The Russian role in the Islamic world doesn’t end there, if the Syria crisis ends, there will be other problems in other areas.
The activity of ISIS is a very deep problem with deep roots. It is rooted deeply in the Islamic world, perhaps it will not be easy to get rid of it.
Non-Muslim countries and Western countries have experienced its aftermath. But we must fight against ISIS at the international level. In my opinion, this initiative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Strategic Vision Group “Russia – Islamic World” will make a very important contribution. We need such meetings so that Russia will know how different representatives of Muslim countries try to solve different problems.
We share our opinions at our meetings and I think that it also will be useful for Russia’s representatives.
Together we will succeed in achieving piece in the Middle East and the Islamic world in general. Thank you for this opportunity, Mr. Chairman. We wish you success in your work, thank you.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"