4th Turkic Council Summit Kicked off in Bodrum
05.06.2014
The 4th Summit of the Cooperation Council of Turkic Speaking States (Turkic Council) has been launched in the Turkish county of Bodrum. President Gül, during the keynote speech at the plenary session, underscored the importance of the consolidation of the existing bonds between the Turkic states and reiterated that they have established the Turkic Council to provide the multilateral cooperation which they enjoy with an institutional framework by acting as per the principle, ‘United we stand divided we fall’”.
President Abdullah Gül welcomed President İlham Aliyev of Azerbaijan; President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan; President Gurbangulu Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan and President Almazbek Atambayev of Kyrgyzstan upon their arrival at the Bodrum Türkbükü Hotel, where the summit was held. Afterwards, the leaders had a family photo taken. President Gül later delivered the keynote speech.
SIGNIFICANCE OF BONDS BETWEEN TURKIC STATES
At the very beginning of his speech, President Gül noted that despite not being a member of the Turkic Council, President Berdimuhamedov of Turkmenistan is attending the summit as a guest.
The President continued as follows: “Our meeting with our brothers are always of great significance to us. I attach great importance to strengthening our bonds with the Turkic states, our sister countries, with whom we share common language, belief, history and other values. In this vein, I have welcomed each and every one of you to Turkey during your official visits and I have enjoyed my visits to your countries as your guest. Our ties and fraternity are deep-rooted and unshakable and our relations are very strong, therefore we thought we should not keep these relations simply on the bilateral level. Thus, we decided to establish the Turkic Council during the Nackchevan Summit held in 2009 in order to fortify the economic interdependency and social interaction between the Turkic states.”
CONSOLIDATING REGIONAL SPIRIT
Reiterating that they have established the Turkich Council to provide the multilateral cooperation which they enjoy with an institutional framework by acting as per the principle, ‘United we stand divided we fall’”, President Gül said that “we have drawn inspiration from the Turkic knot we use in carpet weaving, an important handicraft in Turkic culture. As you know, knots added to each other end up a much more durable and valuable work by taking strength from one another. This is also a symbol of the union and solidarity among the Turkic tribes. Likewise, we aim to fortify our cooperation by taking strength from each other thanks to the Turkic Council. We also aim at creating new synergy by consolidating the regional spirit in a way that will support other regional cooperation mechanisms. We believe that we can make greater contributions to the prosperity of our peoples and to the stability of our region, strengthening the solidarity and partnership we enjoy.”
The President further reiterated that they have regularly gathered together under the roof of the Turkic Council since 2009 and said that they have since strengthened the Istanbul-based Secretariat of the Council, adding: “The Turkic Academy was established in Astana. The Foundation for Turkic Culture and Heritage is to be established soon in Baku. All these institutions will further consolidate the interaction between our youth, who are the guarantee of our future, with our past and common values.”
THEME OF SUMMIT: TOURISM
Informing his audience that the theme of the summit this year is tourism, President Gül declared tourism to be an area which has both economic and human dimensions among the countries on the historic Silk Road, adding that this area also enables people to get to know each other and their shared values.
