Büyükelçi Sayın Egemen Bağış’ın 29 Ekim davetinde  yaptığı konuşma metni

October 29 2024/ 29 Ekim 2024

 

Dear Deputy Foreign Minister Jiri Kozak,

Dear Mr. President Klaus and Madame Klausova,

Dear Prime Ministers Babiş, and Paroubek, Fisher and Necas ,

Excellencies, Representatives of the Diplomatic Missions in Prague,

Deputy Ministers,

Members of the Czech Parliament and Senate,

Distinguished guests,

Ladies and gentlemen,

 

We are delighted to be here in the National Museum which represents the history of this great country with all of you to celebrate the 101st Anniversary of the Proclamation of the Republic of Türkiye and the Centennial Celebration of the Diplomatic Relations between Türkiye and Czechia. Thank you for joining us.

 

Since the national day celebration dates are back to back for our two nations, I would like to start by extending our sincere congratulations to our ally the Czech Republic and the friendly people of Czechia, on the occasion of the Czech National Day of October 28.

 

As President Pavel mentioned during his  speech as he addressed the Ambassadors serving in Prague a few days ago, this is a symbolic year for the Czech Republic. It is the 35th anniversary of the Velvet revolution, 25th anniversary of Czech Republic’s NATO membership and 20th anniversary of her EU membership. Another important anniversary is the centennial year of our diplomatic relations which were established by the vision and leadership of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk. We remember both of these great leaders with admiration and gratitude.

 

Tonight as we celebrate the 101st Anniversary of the Proclamation of our beloved Republic of Türkiye, my wife Beyhan and I would also say farewell to this beautiful city and to all of our friends.

 

We had the honor and privilege of representing our country for the last five years and thanks to all of you we have achieved a lot in terms of enhancing the bilateral relations between Turkiye and Czechia. As many of you know the yearly bilateral trade volume between the two countries has increased from $3 billion to $6.5 billion during our tenure here. We relocated the embassy offices to a modern and well-equipped building befitting our glorious flag. Along with Prague 6 municipality we built a park on Ankarska street in Prague named Turkish-Czech Cooperation Park, the first park bearing the name of our country in Europe as a symbol of our hundred years strong solidarity. We worked closely with the largest Czech companies which increased their investment greatly in our country and also helped the defense industry companies in Czechia to establish strategic partnerships with their Turkish counterparts.

 

Paying homage to Czech architect, Ladislav Čapek, we prepared and published a prestige book with Prof. Jaroslav Sojka about the history of our Embassy Residence building which will celebrate her centennial anniversary in 2025.

 

Our dear friend John Mucha is also with us tonight, thanks to him the painting depicting Halide Edip Adıvar, by his grandfather Alfons Mucha was displayed at the Czech Senate during the Czech Presidency of EU. As she was one of Europe’s pioneer women’s rights advocate and writer, this exhibition was also one of the highlights of our tenure in Prague.

 

Today, as the most Eastern part of Europe, and the most Western part of Asia, Türkiye continues on her 101st year to promote sustainable peace, prosperity, stability and development in her region and beyond. Guided by the enduring objectives of our founder Atatürk to achieve “Peace at Home, Peace in the World”, Turkish diplomacy is doing the utmost to end all conflicts in the world.

 

Our common values such as democracy, human rights and free market economy always play the most important role with our host country and long time NATO ally Czechia.

 

Tonite I would like to underline and thank once again for the strong support and solidarity of the Czech Republic extended after the heartbreaking terror attack in our capital last week.

 

Distinguished guests,

 

During this centennial celebration it is an exceptional honor for me to express on behalf of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Foreign Minister Dr. Hakan Fidan one more time our heartfelt gratitude to Mustafa Kemal Atatürk and our War of Independence martyrs as well as all fallen heroes.

 

These celebrations are never easy to organize. We would like to extend our special thanks to Ms. Guilia Mazzoni, Ms. Giselle Tavilson, Ms. Oylum Talu and the Prag Philarmonia Orchestra for volunteering to support us on the stage this evening with their exceptional music, talent and presence while we celebrate this special day.

 

For their contributions, I am grateful to my dear wife and to our Embassy and residence team as well as to all our volunteers and sponsors. Actually Beyhan and I met at a Republic day celebration just like this one exactly 33 years ago in New York.

 

If you allow me, I would like to very briefly congratulate the Republic Day of our citizens living in the Czech Republic in my native Turkish.

 

Sevgili vatandaşlarımız,

 

Cumhuriyetimizin 101. yılı hepimize kutlu olsun!

 

Sizlere ve Prag’a veda ederken belirtmek isteriz ki beş yılın sonunda birlikte birçok tarihi başarıya imza attık, bu anlamlı gecede eşim Beyhan hanım ile birlikte bize her konuda verdiğiniz destek için her birinize şükranlarımızı sunmayı borç biliriz.

 

Bu çok özel akşam dahil olmak üzere tüm etkinliklerimize destek veren gönüllerimize, tüm mesai arkadaşlarımıza Skoda Yüce Otomotiv ile Çekya’daki yeni gururlarımızdan Trendyol başta olmak üzere desteklerini esirgemeyen tüm sponsorlarımıza da içten teşekkürler. Ayrıca bu anlamlı günde bizleri yalnız bırakmamak üzere İstanbul ve Avrupa’nın diğer şehirlerinden katılan dostlarımıza da ayrıca teşekkür ederiz. Sağolun, varolun.

 

Atamızın da dediği gibi, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti ilelebet payidar kalacaktır!

 

I would now like to invite the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Mr. Jiri Kozak whose presence tonight is a very significant message for us.  He will now address our audience briefly on behalf of our host country.

Thank you very much Mr. Minister. Let’s now watch together the video message of our President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

By Hans Weber hans.weber@pragueforum.cz