"Top global thinker" Davutoglu cities plato, Gandhi as influences

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, recently named a top global thinker by Foreign Policy, told the influential magazine that his thinking was influenced by, among others, Mahatma Gandhi and ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Davutoglu, number seven on Foreign Policy's annual list of the world's top 100 intellectuals, is now in Washington to attend an event organized by the magazine and also have talks with senior US officials, including Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. Plato "has interesting things to say about ideals and practice," he told the magazine. "He is not only a Greek thinker," added Davutoglu, "he is our thinker, because if you read the works of Ottoman scholars of the 16th century, all of these Greek scholars were addressed as 'our masters.' So, for us, they represent the history of all traditions, and theirs are the values of humanity." Davutoglu also praised Gandhi, the pacifist and ideological leader of India's independence movement, as "a practitioner and a visionary trying to use new and unconventional methods to achieve political objectives." Davutoglu, the architect of Turkey's policy of "zero problems with neighbors," was hailed by FP "for being the brains behind Turkey's global reawakening."