STATEMENT OF TURKEY
BY Mr. Abdullah Rasit Gulhan

Mr. Chairman,
Mr. Secretary General
Honorable Ministers,
Distinguished Delegates
Ladies and Gentlemen,

At the outset, on behalf of my Government and my delegation, I would like to thank the Government and the people of Kingdom of Morocco for their successful hosting of the Conference and warm hospitality.

Today, there is no doubt that the modern world is undergoing a unprecedented transformation from the industrial society that marked the 20th century rapidly gives way to the information society of the 21st century. In order to get equal and maximum benefit from this continued growth of the information technologies, the world community ought to increase their efforts for more global cooperation and harmonization in appropriate areas. We believe that this important Conference will create an important platform to deal with cooperation projects and exchange of views among the nations.

For the new communication technologies, the major problem is that their access would be reserved only to certain countries or circles, the others being separated from the Information Society and its tremendous developmental potential. One of the important aims of this Conference is therefore to develop a common vision and understanding of the Information Society and to take necessary steps primarily in order to reduce the digital divide which can be described as the gap between those who have the resources and skills required to access and use technology and those who do not. I should give a reference to Istanbul Action Plan here. As the distinguished delegates may recall that Istanbul Action Plan was prepared in order to decrease digital divide. Thus, all the citizens of the world will have relatively equal benefits from the telecommunications systems.

It is a statistical reality that many of the people, particularly living in developing countries are not able to benefit from the technological developments, as they desire since they do not have sufficient economic power. Therefore, together with developed countries ITU should take necessary steps that will improve access to technology so everyone on the planet will be able to benefit telecommunications services more equally within the next decade. Currently, approximately 50 percent of the world's households have no phone service. As a result, the information and technology gap and related inequalities between industrialized and developing nations are widening and these can be another source for creating tension. Thus, in order to reap both the economic and social benefits of technological progress and to improve people's quality of life, the Information Society must be based on the principles of equal opportunities, participation and integration of all. This can only happen if everybody has access to at least a basic set of the new services and applications offered by the Information Society.

Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Delegates,

Turkey has a dynamic telecommunications market and the telecommunications sector of Turkey has been developing in recent years. For example, although there were only 1 million PSTN line users in 1980, the capacity of PSTN has already reached to 21 million and the number of users reached to 19 million. In the GSM market, there are 4 operators in Turkey and all operators have more than 22 million GSM users. Not only number of subscriber increases but also variety and quality of services enhance.

Turkey, serving as a bridge between Asia and Europe and one of the founder members of ITU, being aware of the importance of international cooperation, hosted the last two significant ITU conferences. One of them was WRC-2000, in which 2500 delegates participated from all over the world that was also found very successful by almost each participant. Turkey also hosted WTDC-02 held between 18-27 March in Istanbul in which more than 1500 delegate participated and important steps were taken during the conference in finding out reasonable solutions for "digital divide" issue. As I mentioned before Turkey as a bridge between Asia and Europe would like to be a bridge between developing and developed countries in order to contribute to decrease the digital divide.

In today's dynamic telecommunication environment, I believe that mutual collaboration and information exchange are the key factors for the success. We have therefore given particular importance to Turkey's relations with the international telecommunication organizations and have been actively participating in the activities conducted by these organizations. In this context, Turkey places special significance to ITU organs and its studies. Turkey, therefore, put forward its candidacy for ITU Council membership. In spite of being one of the founders of the ITU, Turkey could not be represented in the Council since 1951.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I would like to conclude by wishing this historic conference every success. We very much look forward to joining with all delegates, and with you Mr. Chairman, in making the 2002 Plenipotentiary a landmark in the history of the ITU. We are confident that this conference will be a milestone to enhance cooperation among the nations.

I would like to thank once again to the Government and people of the Kingdom of Morocco for hosting us in this beautiful city Marrakesh and for their hospitality.

Tesekkur Ederim, Sükran Kesiran, Thank you very much.