Commemorating Ataturk

"Turkey is today commemorating the 66th anniversary of the death of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk -- the founding father of Turkey, who after winning the country's independence from occupying armies following World War I, established the modern Turkish Republic from the ashes of the "sick man of Europe," the Ottoman Empire."

"(Ataturk) introduced a modern civil code and transformed the people of this land from a religious community into the Turkish nation. Religion and politics were segregated. That was the revolution that created today's modern secular Turkish Republic of predominantly Muslim Turks -- a living example in the post Sept. 11 world that Islam and democracy can indeed coexist."

Commemorating Ataturk