Iranian President Ahmadinejad to Turkish TV – Interview

Dandelion Salad

http://www.memri.org

August 14, 2008

Iranian President Ahmadinejad to Turkish TV In Advance of Turkey Visit: Our Attitude Toward Israel is Shared By Turks And By ‘Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Palestine – Because These Are the True Words [Of Allah]’; ‘I Wish They Had Free Elections in America… Whatever Government Comes, It Must Leave the Middle East’

CNNTurk and NTV television interviewed Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in advance of his visit to Turkey. The following is the transcript of the interview: [1]

To view the clip of the interview, visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKUuGNNanjY.

“The Two Countries [Turkey and Iran] are Culturally Close and the Two Peoples Share Many Similarities”

NTV: “You will be meeting with [Turkish] President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Erdogan tomorrow in Istanbul. What are your expectations, and with what files are you going to Turkey?”

Ahmadinejad: “Salutations to you and to the great, believing, and patriotic people of Turkey. There are historical and cultural ties between the great, faithful, and patriotic Turkish and Iranian people. You can find Turkish and Iranian relations in the depth of their history and in their sacred ties. The two countries are culturally close and the two peoples share many similarities. The two counties have good and friendly and further developing relations. We have trade relations, cultural relations and I am happy to say that we also have growing political relations.

“At the invitation of my dear friend and brother Abdullah Gul, I will be visiting Turkey – our sister – and we will have discussions on many issues, [such as] bilateral matters, the cooperation between our two countries, agreements – the old ones that we signed and new ones that we will sign – and on developing our relations. Also there are regional issues; we will exchange views on those.

“[We will discuss] terrorism and our joint effort to fight it. We will talk about cooperation between Iran and Turkey, as well as cooperation between us, Iraq and Syria. We are talking about global issues and we have dialogue, as two influential countries. We will have intense work to do with our brothers the [Turkish] president and prime minister.”

[…]

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h/t: Cem Ertür

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Ahmadinejad DID NOT threaten to “wipe Israel off the map.”