Mr. Ahmet Davutoğlu, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkey met with Thorbjorn Jagland, Secretary General of the Council of Europe at a working lunch on June 25, 2013.

Speaking to the press following the meeting, Foreign Minister Davutoğlu stated that future of the European democracy, background of the recent developments in Turkey and Turkish Government’s approach to the developments were addressed.

“Council of Europe is the most important institution which contributed to the embedding of democracy, freedom of expression and the state of law in the Europe. Turkey is also proud of being a member of Council of Europe from the very beginning and makes every contribution to its efforts” said Foreign Minister Davutoğlu and emphasized that Turkey is determined to embed the freedoms into the rules of state of law and to implement in every field. “The reforms carried out in the last 10 years confirm our approach. We have never compromised freedoms and we never will. However, use of freedom is also limited within the rules of state of law as in the all advanced democracies” said Foreign Minister Davutoğlu.

Underlining that Turkish democracy is an advanced democracy in terms of European democracies; Foreign Minister Davutoğlu said that “Mistakes which can happen in any democracies are dealt within our internal structures. But, those who want to ignore Turkish democracy or who try to downgrade the progress it achieved were not given an opportunity. European standards are applied completely in Turkey”.