In promoting inter-cultural dialogue many duties await Turkey, former US President Bill Clinton said. The country's identity and location will play a crucial role for the dialogue to yield results, Clinton said. "The only thing we need is to have talks. We need to talk in the US and in the international
arena."Clinton, in the last day of a three-day sessions on the Gobal Initiative, shared his assessments with Zaman, reassuring his support for Turkey's European Union (EU) membership. He carefully followed the speech Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan delivered in the panel titled," How can civilizations talk with each other?” Clinton said, "Mr. Erdogan makes considerable efforts in promoting dialogue." "Could you yield the result that you expected from this initiative organized simultaneously with the United Nations (UN) Summit? And what was the difference of this initiative?” He was asked.
"This is our first year and I am very pleased with it. As you see, we just don't talk here, the participants make their contributions in cash without delay," former US president responded as he pointed out the $1,250 million financial aid collected in three days. This amount will be used in 100 different fields regarding global problems. The Initiative's goal, former president acknowledged, is to form a speech platform among the cultures, nations and religions. "The only thing we need to do is to talk. We need to talk in the US and in the international arena. And we are talking here. This is our biggest gain."
The initiative will continue in the next decade as well, he said. "I believe at the end of the next decade, the world will be a more livable place." When asked, "What do you think is the most crucial point of this initiative?" Clinton replied, "We gathered people from nearly all the religions and political opinions under a single roof and took promises from them about certain issues." At the end of the very first summit, the Initiative took concrete steps for the development of a transportation system in Sri Lanka, the development of a justice system in Peru and Colombia, and providing credits for small-scale entrepreneurs. Recalling the first monetary donation in the summit bearing his name, "This is the power of the public and non-governmental organizations. The sprit of the era requires this. For instance, we may not be pleased with the US President George W. Bush’ actions; however, we can solve many problems by organizing the sources, energy and the public power we have."
Clinton closes the session with verses
Clinton addressed a group of 1,000 people including Hollywood starts like Brad Pitt, Angelina Jolie, Chris Tucker, Barbara Streisand, Leonardo DiCaprio and politicians such as Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, which is the political extension of the Ireland Liberation Organization, US African American Democrat leader Jesse Jackson, and his former Vice President Al Gore in his closing speech. The main part of Clinton’s speech was based on the concept of inter-religious dialogue. He dwelled upon the need to draw a bold line between the fight against extremism and religions. Concepts of peace and harmony are the basis of Islam and differences should not create conflict but should be a source of richness, Clinton told. "As a matter of fact, Islam's holy book Qur'an says Allah created all of you differently so that you can know and be friends with each other, not to fight with each other,,” said Clinton, which gave him a thunderous applause from the people in the room. “All the people in the world should join hands with each other and fight against problems such as extremism, poverty, lack of education, unfair distribution of income and AIDS."
200 journalists followed the initiative
Two hundred press members followed the Clinton Global Initiative, which lasted for three days and nearly 1,000 participants attended. Zaman was the only Turkish newspaper that followed the summit from the beginning to the end, in which a restricted number of journalists were accredited. In the first summit of the initiative, issues such as the "fight against poverty," "religion, conflict, compromise," "climate change" and "governance" were discussed. Every year global problems will be laid down on the table under four subject headings.
click here for original piece at Zaman Daily.
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