Obama’s words have a familiar ring in Turkey

For Turks, President Obama’s address to the Islamic world had a familiar ring.

Two months ago, the U.S. president voiced a similar message of reconciliation in a speech to the Turkish parliament.

“We already knew him as someone whose hand is stretched out to us,” said Ismail Deniz, who sells carpets in the shadow of Istanbul’s iconic Blue Mosque. “So for us now the question is: Where does all this talk lead?”

Obama’s address was carried live on major Turkish TV channels, and sets were switched on in many teahouses, shops and cramped bazaar stalls.

Turkey’s constitutional secularism is being challenged by public life growing ever more devout, a rise that has caused tensions between those Turks who believe that their right to express their beliefs is sometimes curtailed and others who want to preserve a lifestyle marked by freedoms unseen in many Muslim countries.

In Istanbul, young couples stroll hand in hand on the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare, sometimes pausing to engage in smooching and snuggling that would be considered unacceptable public behavior in much of the Muslim world.

“Certainly it’s good if Muslims and the West can get along better, and if Obama helps bring that about, I’m glad,” said student Asye Kogan. She was wearing tight jeans and a nose ring.

“But what’s most important to me is what happens at home: that we not have ‘rule of the mullahs’ here.”

-- Laura King