President Erdogan
at Award Ceremony

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan made very important statements at an award ceremony held in Istanbul. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attended the event organized on the occasion of the 65^th anniversary of the ‘Society to Disseminate Knowledge’ (İlim Yayma Cemiyeti). At the ceremony held at Halic Congress Center in Istanbul, President Erdogan delivered a speech.

President Erdogan in his speech underlined that today Turkey’s brain drain has reversed compared to previous years. “The migration of our scientists and researchers who went abroad in the past is now reversed.” Erdogan said.

It is known that under the rule of Justice and Development Party, new universities were founded along with new non-governmental organizations supporting researchers for conducting research. Many students got the opportunity of going abroad with scholarship.

In the ceremony, Erdogan stressed that the science and education issues were once inspired by the Muslim community, however the Muslim world today is quite backwards in terms of education and science. One of the main issues President Erdogan underlined in his speech has been about the leading role of Turkey in making Muslim world become strong again. Erdogan stated that Turkey should lead the process. “We have a lot of work to do. The direction has been drawn, the happy walk began. There are 207 universities working now. In the coming period, we will focus more on student and academic exchange programs to educate our students”, Erdogan said.

In another speech President Erdogan made at the closing ceremony of Prof. Fuat Sezgin Year, he said: “It is impossible to write the history of civilizations without taking the Islamic civilization into account, Turkey has been working hard to undertake major initiatives in science and technology both at the national and international level.” Emphasizing that the history of humanity took its current condition more from scientific innovations than from wars and clashes, President Erdogan said: “History gives us the opportunity to embrace our past besides building our future.

Erdogan stated that attributing science to the Western world is ignorance. Erdogan stressed that Muslim scholars starting from the eighth century had conducted multidisciplinary searches that had provided a solid ground for scientific thought.