TURKEY

OPENING REMARKS BY H.E. Mr recep tayyip erdogan
prime minister

Dear Secretary General,
Dear participants,
Ladies and gentlemen….

First of all, I’d like to welcome and greet everyone with love and respect. Before I start my speech about the importance of this congress, I’d like to say a few words for one of our previous prime ministers Mr. Bülent Ecevit. Our country lost one of its important politicians and statemen last night at 22:20. I wish first of all, the Turkish nation and everyone cited here my condolences. It’s my pleasure to be with you here today in the opening ceremony of the general council of ITU. The decisions which will be taken in this conference will deeply involve the developed and developing countries.

I believe that today the governments, authorities and the investors will take this conference into consideration while they make their own decisions after the International Telecommunication Union General Council. As a government we give great importance to the international and regional collaboration because capital, knowledge and hard-work have become a cooker and wide-spread thanks to the communication Technologies.

Dear attendees,

The International Telecommunication Union has proved the success during the year 1865 to overview that the world will become a global village in our days. I guess that to preview what will happen in the future has become more precious due to the fact that time now has become more quick than the decades before since nowadays we are living in a more speedy way. We keep on making the world smaller thanks to what we call globalisation. As you well know, the world-states have been separated into categories since the old times. But nowadays after the revolution of communication, we are becoming the witnesses of the critiques of the governments which are weak or powerful.

Nowadays, either economically or military is not a way to distinguish the place of the government. The states separate into a means of being integrated or not to the global system. In the sub-categories the global system that has integrated or that has not been a success has been, as we have seen as approved as unsuccessful. I for one, classify the states internet terminology like this: the online states and offline states and I could say with great pleasure that Turkey has now become after the big steps that we have made within the years, a state which is online for 24 hours. We keep on working for hours to be able to transform the society into a society where there is no disconnection to the internet. Turkey is ready for her citizens to be in the reach of anyone who is in need of the global system. Our vision is to make Turkey become a country that open to the world, open to the society and open to the economy.

Dear friends,

In the coming society of knowledge we have achieved a great number of subscribers since 2002, we have seen that the number of 1 million 300 thousand has now become to nearly to two and half million. The subscribers of the ADSL has overgrown to two million and the internet users has reached 16 million people. I believe that with the new projects the internet use will increase.

We give great importance to e-government and e-transformation Project. With these projects we have aimed to bring together a more citizen, participant, transparent, effective, qualified and fast public service we have taken a big step. We can clearly see that by realizing the e-transformation in the public services we have made sure that the productivity increases while we make sure that our future generation will be ready to make a further step, that is why we support the latest technologies in our schools.

Within this prospect, we have founded classes of knowledge Technologies in our schools. In the most part of our schools we have provided the fast ADSL. In the year 2003 only seven hundred forty-two of our schools had internet, in the year 2004, 12014, in the year 2005, 7835 of our schools had the opportunity of having internet. Till the end of the road, we will provide 17502 more of our schools with internet. Today, 82% of high schools can reach to the internet more quick and easily, with the percentage of 95% of the students reach in the internet. But it is not enough only to be a part of the knowledge and communication technologies to be able to be a society with fully informed. To be able to achieve this as a society is only possible by a serious transformation.

We are still walking on the road to provide the dynamism and the quality for our people to become a society of knowledge. We all know that to provide everyone with the technologies important regulations that is why we tried to do the studies needed while we keep on sticking to our culture and social conditions. In parallel to what is happening in the world since the year 2004 we have liberated the telecommunication sector. We have opened the sector to free competition. We are trying to make sure that it is easier to get access to knowledge. We want all our citizens to have equal conditions. We especially try to make use of the latest technology to be a part of the global economy. We try to develop new strategies according to our society’s needs. I am glad to express that Turkey has an infrastructure right now that can make use of the latest technology.

Today we have become the Turkey that has accepted the Copenhagen criteria and the EU negotiations. That means friends, Turkey has a young population. The young generation needs to have the latest technology that is why by supporting the research and development works we wish to dynamize the telecommunication sector. We are in the knowledge that to maintain this is very hard but still we are trying to maintain this both here in Turkey and outside. We can not only maintain this technology by transfers. This is why we have to bring new work to the research and development to provide results which can be used. To make liberalization attractive we will bring new customers.

Dear participants,

One of the biggest subjects that we give importance to is the alternative infrastructure and the knowledge presentation, so that we can aim at a more quick, more safe and more reasonable costs. Our country has lived a lot of transformations within the last years. Within this period, we have made a lot of steps to become a knowledge and telecommunication and communication services. Yes, we know of course that we pay a high tax to be able to use electronically communication. This is why we are trying to make a new law amendments to lower the taxes. We wish to provide each of a every single individual to make use of telecommunication services.

Dear friends,

Today the global developments need to be supported by intense collaboration throughout the world. I believe that in the future telecommunication will achieve a lot of new trends and we will all be witnesses. Specially today we have chosen a natural beauty, a historical place by choosing our Antalya we aim to bring a high rate to the communication world by this general council. I believe that this general council will bring us all richness to our visions. With these thoughts I wish you all a productive general council and I greet you all from the heart for myself and my nation by wishing you a very successful conference.