Bakir Izetbegovic, member of the BiH Presidency, was awarded the Green Crescent’s “Feniks 2015” with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan for his contributions to the work of that organization, the Anadolu Agency reports.
In Istanbul, an award ceremony was organized for the honor bestowed for contributions to the work of the Green Crescent organization. Aside from Erdogan, the award was bestowed on Bakir Izetbegovic, member of the BiH Presidency.
Erdogan, before receiving the award from the Green Crescent itself, was given the book “And I am from Srebrenica” (I ja sam iz Srebrenice) personally by the author of that book, the BiH journalist Fikret Hodzic.
Erdogan on the occasion recalled that, together with his family, he had visited Srebrenica several times to mark the anniversary of the genocide there.
“Srebrenica is a place where we experienced truly different feelings. The place where we saw to what extent the West was hypocritical. Around 8,000 Bosniaks were killed in the genocide in Srebrenica,” recalled Erdogan.
After that, Izetbegovic gave the award to Recep Tayyip Erdogan, and Izetbegovic’s award for his contribution to the work of the organization in BiH was presented by Ihsan Karaman, the president of Yesilay.
Izetbegovic, after receiving the award, recalled the long tradition and the work of the Green Crescent, and expressed gratitude for the award, saying that this for him is a “rare and special honor.”
“This organization is a public good of the Republic of Turkey and its citizens. Performing its human mission of prevention and the fight against all forms of dependence in over 30 countries, the light of the Green Crescent has grown into a global organization. The countries that became part of the Green Crescent spread from BiH to Palestine, from Montenegro to Thailand, from Serbia to Lebanon, from Albania to Tanzania.”
During the evening, awards were presented to other personalities who had made contributions to the work of the Green Crescent organization.
The Green Crescent was formed in 1920, founded by a group of intellectuals on the order of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the first president of Turkey. The organization was founded to create a program of prevention and combatting alcoholism, and later against drug dependency and nicotine abuse. It opened in BiH in October of last year.
(Source: oslobodjenje)
