It is my pleasure to address you at the opening of this Radiocommunication Assembly. Let me pay a special tribute to the generous and outstanding support that the ITU has received from the Turkish Administration and its partners, who offered to host these major ITU events in Istanbul, a city that has, for many centuries, been a symbol of bridging continents, just as telecommunications do today.

Today we all have the chance to attend the ITU Radiocommunication Assembly after months of careful and intense preparation provided by our hosts at a time when natural disasters have presented enormous challenges. The close cooperation between our hosts and the ITU Secretariat, based on extremely friendly relations, has allowed the provision of excellent facilities, not only for this Assembly, but also for the WRC next week with its much larger participation.

As you are aware, this is the first Sector Assembly called upon to implement decisions of the Plenipotentiary Conference aimed at reinforcing the role of the ITU in the telecommunications field. There is no need to say that the ITU membership should play an active role in strengthening the ITU’s position in an environment where its role is being challenged. This is a constant preoccupation for all of us. A number of important initiatives, such as the establishment of the ITU Reform Advisory Panel, have been taken to this end.

Here in the field of radiocommunications, too, new proposals and suggestions are needed to achieve this goal and we must give the Council and the next Plenipotentiary Conference good ideas to carry out the necessary changes.

We must certainly not forget that the ITU is the only organization where spectrum regulators, spectrum users, administrations, equipment manufacturers and service providers and others have established a worldwide forum to talk to each other.

Many important projects which depend upon the work of the Radiocommunication Sector have now achieved global application. This can be said of IMT-2000 and will certainly be the case for many more projects. The success of these projects will send a signal to the external world of the ever-increasing role of the ITU.

Ladies and gentlemen, as you dedicate yourselves to establishing the basic working procedures to be applied to the ITU-R Study Group work in the forthcoming period, I wish to assure you of the continuing support of the Secretariat and of my personal commitment to your activities that are vital to the ITU community.

Let me wish you a successful Assembly.