Erdogan attends Lebanese Parliament's presidential election session

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Foreign Minister Ali Babacan yesterday attended a full assembly session of Lebanese Parliament which convened to elect army chief Michel Sleiman as president in a first step towards defusing an often deadly 18-month standoff between feuding political factions. Before his departure, at Ankara's Esenboga Airport, Erdogan said that Turkey would continue its efforts to find solutions for problems in the region through dialogue and compromise, adding that Ankara wants stability and prosperity in the region. In addition to Erdogan and Babacan, Qatar's emir and his prime minister -- the driving force behind the Doha agreement -- and foreign ministers from Syria, Saudi Arabia, France, and Iran were present at the gathering. Sleiman became the 11th president of Lebanon by votes of 118 deputies. Following the election and the presidential swearing-in ceremony, Erdogan met with Qatar's premier and foreign minister and Lebanon's Saad Hariri, and then returned to Turkey. If we had remained silent as a party elected by 16.5 million voters, we couldn't have been the voice of the silent crowd, said yesterday Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Speaking to his ruling Justice and Development Party's (AKP) women branches meeting in Ankara, Erdogan criticized latest statements by the Supreme Court of Appeals and the State Council, saying, "Everyone should do his job. Legislation is working. It is not possible to interfere with legislation." Claiming that the supreme court of appeals board of directors do not act through the constitutional law or with the powers it got from the law, Erdogan stated that such an authorization is not possible. "If a statement is issued against a party which is sued for ban and which received votes of 16.5 million citizens, it would be betraying all these people to leave these notes unanswered," he added. Touching on issues such as secularism and democracy, Erdogan said, "Nobody has the right to force religious belief. Some of my colleagues prefer different lifestyles. As a guarantee for liberty, secularism means differences. We do not defend secularism as a system but we experience it at the same time. The issue is not secularism; it is whether Turkey will be a country of democracy or not."