Gul shares sadness about tragedy in Syria

President Abdullah Gul on Thursday met with President Morsi of Egypt as part of his official visit after the end of the summit of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), had a tete-a-tete and held a joint press conference with Morsi during which he shared his sadness about the tragic ongoing events in Syria. "These events are tearing our hearts out. During the conference yesterday, I met with leaders of Egypt and Iran. I hope we can contribute to the efforts to end the current situation in Syria before it destroys itself altogether," Gul said. Stating that the social transformation process that the Muslim world has been going through gave Muslims the opportunity to embrace the values of Islam, Gul called on the Muslim world to appreciate the process of social transformation that was triggered by the Arab Awakening. "We, as the Islamic world, cannot bear the responsibility of failure in this democratization process," Gul added, suggesting collaboration among Muslim countries to establish peace and democracy in the region. Gul said that Egypt and Turkey have always been in solidarity with each other, the trade volume between the two countries amounted to approximately $5 billion and that he told Morsi that the amount could be increased to $10 billion. For his part, Morsi said, "The most important issue on Syria has to do with stopping the bloodshed immediately. This is crucial for us and we hope to be successful in that regard."  The summit ended with a final declaration and it was decided that the next one to be organized in 2016 will be hosted by Turkey. Gul thanked the member countries for agreeing that Turkey will be the host country.