Posted on 04/20/2015 1:30:01 PM PDT by barmag25
The presidents of Turkey and the U.S. will open the Turkish-American Culture and Civilization Center in Maryland, Turkey's foreign minister said Sunday.
Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu visited the center that also has a middle-sized mosque on a three-day visit to Washington, and lunched with representatives from the American Muslim community.
"During a phone call, President (Recep Tayyip) Erdoğan asked President (Barack) Obama to accompany him in opening the center together and President Obama accepted his offer'in principle,'" Çavuşoğlu told the representatives.
If Obama's schedule allows at the time of the opening, he will accompany Erdoğan.
The complex is built on a large area and consists of a coffee house, gift shops, cultural center, amphitheater and exhibition hall, computer lab, library, Turkish bath/hamam and guest house.
Çavuşoğlu said the center has been constructed as a place where all Muslims in the U.S. could come together and worship freely.
He said Muslims have faced increased challenges across the world, particularly due to rising Islamophobia.
"Our duty is to tell the true Islam which is a religion of peace. Islam does not tolerate terrorism. But unfortunately al-Qaeda and ISIS terror groups have tarnished the image of Islam," he said.
The self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) is neither Islamic nor is a state, he added.
Recalling that Turkey has contributed to the construction of the center in Maryland, the top diplomat said Turkey has contributed to development and infrastructure projects in Muslim countries, citing Somalia, Djibouti and Myanmar.
Çavuşoğlu also touched on Pope Francis' comments on 1915 events.
Francis said on Sunday that "the first genocide of the 20th century" had struck Armenians, referring to events that took place during World War I when a portion of the Armenian population living in the Ottoman Empire sided with invading Russians and revolted against the empire.
The Ottoman Empire relocated Armenians in eastern Anatolia following the revolts and there were Armenian casualties during the relocation process.
Armenia has demanded an apology and compensation, while Turkey has officially refuted Armenian allegations about the incidents saying that although Armenians died during the relocations, many Turks also lost their lives in attacks carried out by Armenian gangs in Anatolia.
Ankara agrees there were Armenian casualties during World War I but says it is impossible to define these events as "genocide."
The European Parliament also passed a resolution recognizing the 1915 events as "genocide."
Referring to the resolution by the pope and European Parliament, Cavusoglu said recent anti-Turkey propaganda showed that it makes a big difference when Muslims are victims or subject of an event.
There is a clear double standard against Muslims, he said.
This sounds less like a community center and more like a mosque.
No . More . Mosques
Or “Islamic Centers”
In fact, the practice of Islam should be BANNED in the US.
It is NOT a religion.
It is an ideology that is contrapuntal to the U.S. Constitution!
Erdogan has been fingered as the anti-Christ by people from the Near East. He is a liar and a trickster.
Like I said, my brain injury causes me to hallucinate. I thought I read that Obama is going to show up at the opening of a 100 million dollar mosque. It must have been a hallucination because where the @#@# could these Muslims come up 100 millions bucks except from OUTSIDE TERRORIST INERLOPERS WANTING TO SPEAD THEIR DISEASED RELIGION TO THE US
He is certainly anti-Christian.
No Turkish mosques or community centers or anything until they acknowledge and apologize for the Christian Armenian genocide.
Odumbo should stick to opening Bath houses instead of Mosques for his brothers.
Oh! THAT will really tick him off!
Largest mega mosque in North America. Saracen foothold in the belly of the “Great Satan”.
I hate Islam and I don’t trust any Muslim!
Walid Shoebat thinks this or a soon future leader of Turkey will be the Antichrist.
Just saying....
Islamists worship Satan. Check out their prayer position...heads pointed to hell and butts pointed to heaven.
We are simply handing America over to the muslims. And not one person of authority is standing up to them.
Team up with the Anti-Christ...sounds like a great plan obozo.
Freegards
LEX
Is erdogan willing to open a large Christian complex on his soil?
I prefer real bacon, not that Turkey stuff....
What about the Armenian Center?
No wonder 0 won’t condemn the genocide by turkey.
Someone could really pull his chain by opening a *secular* “Turkish-US community center”, devoted to describing and expanding on Atatürk’s vision of a modern, *secular* Turkey as a European, not Arabic-Muslim, nation.
It could be even more gleeful by creating the impression that everything modern and good in Turkey was brought by secularism, and everything bad, primitive, violent, destructive and cruel was brought by Islam.
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