The tasks facing those who promote peace between all religions and nations.
The dialogue with Islam began in 2011 with His Excellency Mehmet Görmez, the highest Islamic Authority in Turkey.
Turkish television and press reported!
The following were informed of the meeting: the Office of the Federal President, the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Federal Ministry for Economics and the German Embassy in Ankara.
His Excellency Prof. Mehmet Görmez explained that he had taken part in many talks but it had been a long time since the talks were so good. The Chairmen of DMW Günther Meinel suggested that this might be due to the fact that he does not represent political interests, but the search for international understanding.
Dear Günther Meinel,
Chairman of INGO DMW – Diplomats International,
I would first of all like to express my deepest thanks to you for your visit to our Presidency/our Office on July 21, 2011. We all found the meeting that took place to be useful and supportive of the ongoing efforts being made by Turkey to join the European Union.
As President of the Presidency of Religious Affairs in Turkey, I have to say that we are extremely willing to solve the common problems facing society and the whole of humanity using the inspiration of divine values and the universal ethical meaning of humanity.
I would also like to say to you that I very much respect your efforts to promote public awareness of the efforts being made in Turkey to promote human rights, the judiciary and education.
I hope that the cooperation between our institutions will continue in the future.
Yours sincerely,
Prof. Dr. Mehmet Görmez
President of the Presidency of Religious Affairs
Turkey
German – Turkish News Diyanet President: Islam does not justify violence against women
German Turkish News | July 22, 2011
Women continue to be killed by their own husbands or relatives. Religion is no justification for this.
"People sometimes use their beliefs to justify their bad behavior. That is the case in almost all cultures and religions," explained Mehmet Görmez, President of the Turkish Office for Religious Affairs Diyanet. He was speaking on this occasion with Günther Meinel, Chairman of DMW, as well as Bartholomew I, Greek Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople.
During the talks, Prof. Görmez also spoke about the growing fears in Turkey with regard to the rights of women. His office has spent the last ten years preparing guidelines on how false views of women and attitudes towards them can be eliminated from society.
The mistreatment of women is the result of “excessive ignorance” about Islam, Turkey’s chief cleric said Thursday, following the recent release of consecutive reports on violence against women.
“People sometimes try to rationalize their bad behaviors by using religion. This has been the case in almost every culture and religion,” Mehmet Görmez, head of Turkey’s Directorate of Religious Affairs, said following meetings with Gunther Meinel, the head of the Union of Diplomats in Europe, and Istanbul’s Greek Orthodox Patriarch Bartholomew. I see this not as a gender [problem] but as a problem of power and ethics,” he said.
“Our excessive ignorance is the source of so many false attitudes. This shows we have not been working enough on the matter,” Görmez added. In response to nearly daily news reports about killed or beaten women, the Turkish government has decided to take further measures to stop violence against women and to increase sanctions imposed on offenders. President Abdullah Gül’s office announced Tuesday that he had appointed the State Audit Board, or DDK, to extensively investigate cases of domestic violence.