At the international conference organized on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Turkey and the People's Republic of China, Marmara Group Foundation President Dr. Akkan Suver made a speech and told about the historical adventure of our relations.

The conference, which took place via satellite, was organized by CPACCF. Below you will find the transcript of Dr. Suver's speech:

Distinguished Participants,

Today is the 4th of August.

Fifty years ago, diplomatic relations started between Turkey and the People's Republic of China, with the signatures signed between Turkey's Ambassador to Paris Hasan Esat Işık and China's Ambassador to Paris, China's former Deputy Foreign Minister Huang Chen.

On that day, Turkey's Minister of Foreign Affairs was Osman Olcay, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China was Marshal Chen Yi.

Again, I would like to thank H.E. Lin Songtian President of the China People's Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries, and Vice President H.E. Lin Yi who brought us together on the internet today, on behalf of myself and the Marmara Group Foundation.

Dear Listeners,

Of course, important visits and important commercial developments have taken place between our countries through our statesmen in fifty years.

Particularly, there is a full cooperation and agreement between Turkey and the People's Republic of China on the three evil forces of fundamentalism, ethnic separatism and international terrorism. These are the socio-economic, political and cultural achievements of fifty years.

Relations and cooperation between Turkey and China over the past fifty years have made great progress in every field.

With your permission, I will talk today about the Belt and Road Initiative, which I attach great importance to and which is creating a great bridge not only between the Chinese people and the Turkish people, but also between different nations. This initiative, put forward by President Xi Jingping at the end of 2013 and officially joined by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in 2017, seems to be a global economic development project in general, but it is also a cultural communication bridge between the two countries. It will take the friendly relations that have been developing smoothly to a higher level.

Because what we need for world peace today is a safer, richer, cleaner, healthier and more free world, I attach great importance to the ideas and initiatives that will serve this. What I want to tell is the role that the Belt and Road Initiative will play in the formation of such a world. Dialogue is the main actor in this role. The need for dialogue is obvious, as the pandemic that we have been living through for about a year and a half has spontaneously revealed the need for global cooperation.

Therefore, the historical Silk Road has come out of the pages of history and started to bring peoples together on the road from Xian to London. In this way of coming together; there are people, there are cultures, there are civilizations, there is beauty, there is geography, and there is history. The Silk Road is the key to the development of regional cooperation projects based on the spirit of coexistence, working together and prosperity and unlocking the door to a more peaceful world.

The east of Asia is China and the west is Anatolia. Turkey, with its lands in Asia and Europe, has a strategic position that carries China to Europe. The Chinese and the Turks are two peoples that have lived side by side in the historical process and have been under the influence of each other's civilizations. Now, Belt and Road project will bring our countries together again and remove the distance between us.

With this rapprochement, our partnership, which will take place within the framework of sustainable dialogues, will reveal the importance of Turkey and China more clearly in the coming days.

Why am I saying this?,

I am telling you because in the last year and a half, when our world needed more globalization, we have seen that loneliness and introversion do not help. Either we will all be healthy and with a full stomach or we will experience disasters together.

This tells us the importance of the Belt and Road.

Belt and Road promises hope and opportunity in the relations between China and Turkey. Fifty years of diplomatic cooperation will offer greater opportunities to our peoples with the full implementation of the Belt and Road project. It would be wrong to look at this project only as a transportation project.

As I wrap up my words, I would like to state that the balanced, stable and peaceful policies we have pursued for fifty years will be a lighthouse in front of Turkey and China in the next fifty years, with the Belt and Road initiative.

Thank you for listening to me.