Tyrkias statsminister Recep Tayyip Erdogan anklager Vesten for å ville definere verdiene i en fremvoksende global sivilisasjon. Han mener at fiendskapen til islam er voksende, og vil gjøre islamofobi til en forbrytelse mot menneskeheten.

Erdogan sa dette mandag under en tale på møte i Alliansen av Sivilisasjoner, et prosjekt Tyrkia og Spania står i spissen for. Meningen er at de skal bygge bro mellom kulturer, slik Tyrkia historisk har vært en bro mellom Europa og Orienten, og slik Spania med sin mauriske kultur var en blandingskultur.

Erdogan har tidligere gått i rette med det han oppfatter som en negativ oppfattelse av islam, men han har aldri gått så langt som til å kreve islamofobi klassifisert som en forbrytelse mot menneskeheten, en av de groveste forbrytelse man kan begå etter folkeretten. Erdogan mener islamofobi er en sykdom. Han benytter uttrykket patologi. Hvem som skal definere hva som er islamofobi sier han ingenting om.

Addressing Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, his Spanish counterpart, and about 2,500 other guests in Istanbul at a celebratory iftar meal on Monday, Mr Erdogan said: «No culture, no civilisation should belittle the other, despise the other or see the other as an enemy.»
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In his speech at the iftar on Monday, Mr Erdogan stressed the need for a dialogue without prejudices.
«The principle mission of the Alliance of Civilisations is an effort to understand each other correctly,» he said. The fear of Islam that has spread in the West, a development he called a «paranoia», makes it harder to reach that aim, he said.

«The fear called Islamophobia is a pathological state of mind, as the name says,» Mr Erdogan said in his speech, according to reports in Turkish newspapers and television stations. «We expect members of other civilisations to declare Islamophobia a crime against humanity, especially while we say that anti-Semitism is a crime against humanity.»
Mr Erdogan has criticised the West for harbouring «Islamophobia» before, saying that Muslims felt «under siege». But this time, the prime minister went further, accusing the West of trying to define values of a global civilisation all by itself.

«We think that civilisation is global, and that civilisation cannot be interpreted like an ideology that belongs to the West,» he said. After a first international forum held in Madrid in January this year, the Alliance of Civilisations will hold its second forum in Istanbul in April.
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In his speech at iftar, Mr Zapatero promised his country’s continuing support for Turkey’s bid to become a member of the European Union, the only such application by a predominantly Muslim nation.

Enmity with Islam ‘crime against humanity’