Today’s Zaman newspaper recently reported on ‘Turkey’s top Muslim cleric slams attack on US consulate in Benghazi’. The President of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, Professor Mehmet Gormez, met with Archon National Commander Anthony J. Limberakis during the Order of Saint Andrew’s Religious Freedom Mission to Berlin, the Ecumenical Patriarchate and Ankara, where they have begun detailed advance work in the planning of the second International Archon Religious Freedom Conference scheduled for November 2013.
Today’s Zaman is one of two English-language dailies based in Turkey and reports on domestic and international coverage. The published article can be read in its entirety below.
Turkey’s top Muslim cleric slams attack on US consulate in Benghazi
9/13/2012
Read this article on the website of Today’s Zaman.
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National Commander Anthony J. Limberakis meeting with the President of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate, Professor Mehmet Gormez. (Photo: AA) |
Head of Turkey’s Religious Affairs Directorate Mehmet Gormez has condemned an attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi that killed the US ambassador to Libya and three embassy staff, saying that violence cannot be justified on any Islamic basis.
“It is impossible to explain such acts of violence on any humanitarian or Islamic grounds,” Gormez said on Thursday at his office during a visit by Anthony J. Limberakis, the representative of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in the United States, expressing his condolences regarding the slain US officials.
US Ambassador Christopher Stevens, another US diplomat and two State Department officers were killed on Tuesday in Libya when a mob of protestors and gunmen angered over a film that ridiculed the Prophet Muhammad attacked the consulate.
“In the same manner, it is impossible to regard such mean and provocative productions as freedom of expression,” Gormez said, adding that nothing can justify such acts of violence, in reference to the killing of the US ambassador.
Limberakis also condemned the attack, emphasizing its troubling coincidence with the anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks.