ERDOGAN QUESTIONS THE NOBEL PEACE PRIZE GIVEN TO EL BARADEI

     Istanbul, 2 Shawwal 1434/9 August 2013 (MINA) – At a meeting of his Justice and Development (AK) Party in Istanbul, Thursday, held to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan questioned the Nobel Peace Prize given to the Vice President of Egypt Mohamed El Baradei.

    “El Baradei received the Nobel Peace Prize and is now the Vice President of the Egyptian government which realized a military coup. I call on Nobel, how do you award the peace prize. This individual who received it took place beside people who made a military coup,” Erdoga said, Anadolu Agency quoted by MINA as reporting.

     Erdogan said about the situation in Egypt, “Some people could not see the injustice in Egypt. Some people could ignore the oppression and massacre in Egypt. Some people could also refuse to call a military coup a ‘military coup’. We see our brothers and sisters in Egypt and feel their pain in our hearts and support their legitimate fight.”

    Mohamed Mustafa El Baradei is an Egyptian law scholar and diplomat who has been the acting Vice President of Egypt since 2013.

     He was the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), an intergovernmental organization under the auspices of the United Nations, from 1997 to 2009.

    He and the IAEA were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 2005, to efforts to prevent nuclear energy from being used for military purposes and to ensure that nuclear energy, for peaceful purposes, is used in the safest possible way.

     El Baradei is the fourth Egyptian to receive the Nobel Prize, following Anwar Sadat (1978 in Peace), Naguib Mahfouz (1988 in Literature), and Ahmed Zewail (1999 in Chemistry).

     El Baradei was also an important figure in recent politics in Egypt, particularly the 2011 revolution which ousted President Hosni Mubarak, and in the 2013 protests and military coup that toppled President Mohamed Morsi.

     Turkish Prime Minister also also criticized the atmosphere in Syria during the month of Ramadan.

     “A mentality in Syria which has stepped on the holiness of Ramadan has massacred individuals fasting.”

     “Our brothers and sisters in Syria have entered Eid al-Fitr full of blood and tears and were subjected to massacres during Ramadan.” (T/P09/E1).

Mi’raj News Agency (MINA).