Downing Street Says » Press conference with PM Erdogan

A transcript of a press conference given by the Prime Minister and Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey on 16 March 2010.

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Can I say how pleased I am to welcome Prime Minister Erdogan of Turkey to the United Kingdom and to welcome also his ministerial team and also the business delegation that has come to visit our country. Two million and more British tourists pass through Turkey each year. 6 billion is the value of our trading relationship. There are 80,000 strong Turkish community here in Britain and this is a dynamic and vibrant partnership. I am pleased to count Prime Minister Erdogan as one of my friends.

I’ve long been a supporter of Turkish accession to the European Union. I was able to confirm to the Prime Minister that my position remains as firm as ever. I have said that Europe will benefit from the cultural, the economic and political strengths that Turkey will bring to Europe’s top table and that the reform process led by the Prime Minister, Prime Minister Erdogan, will remove the remaining obstacles to accession negotiations and therefore I look forward to working with Turkey as a trusted European partner.

Prime Minister Erdogan and I also discussed Cyprus. Let there be no doubt, reaching an agreement on Cyprus will require huge courage on all sides. It will require bold leadership and a spirit of compromise, but I believe that progress is being made. I applaud the leadership being shown by both leaders. Both parties must now maintain that momentum and turn the dream of peace into a reality for all the people of Cyprus and Britain remains ready to do what we can to support this.

We discussed Iran. The International Atomic Energy Authority has made clear that questions on military aspects of Iran’s programme remain unanswered. Prime Minister Erdogan and I share a conviction that we must resolve this issue diplomatically and my belief is that the United Nations Security Council must take action to ensure sanctions against Iran. We will continue to consult on these issues.

Let me end by saying that the friendship between Britain and Turkey will grow, that Turkey is a valued member of the G20 and we work well with Turkey on economic matters, and we applaud what the Turkish troops have done in Afghanistan seeking to bring peace to the Afghan people. Prime Minister Erdogan, you can count on Britain as a close ally in all the challenges we face together.

Distinguished members of the press, as you know, we are here today – I’m here with four ministers, members of the Turkish parliament, in the UK upon invitation by Prime Minister Gordon Brown. We also have in our delegation business people who are here to carry on some very productive and effective work and, in fact, our minister who has the portfolio for trade is going to be remaining in your country for the next two days to continue to have meetings on various sectors, so that discussions and developments in the area of business can continue and grow.

We have had today a very fruitful meeting, both as delegations and also one on one. We have political, military, economic, commercial and cultural ties between our two countries and the UK has always stood by Turkey and, first and foremost, especially in the area of EU accession and I am fully convinced that the UK will continue to stand by Turkey in the process forward. We also work closely in NATO and in line with that close collaboration we act together in many countries and we are working closely together in an important issue, which is Afghanistan and the work we do in Afghanistan together. And these constitute very good positive and concrete examples of the friendship – the process that we have between our two countries.

On the economic front, the British investors are number one; they’re at the top of the list as far as investment in Turkey is concerned, because there are approximately 2,200 firms who have invested in Turkey, which is not to say that we think it’s sufficient. That there should in fact be – we believe there should be more investment coming to Turkey from the UK. And I am also fully convinced that we could have a lot of investment and business cooperation in third countries.

Another important point in our relations, which you have also referred to, is the number of tourists visiting Turkey from Britain, which has exceeded two million in 2009. And then again there are also not just tourists who come and visit Turkey, but there are also other people coming from the UK to buy property and to continue their lives in Turkey, so they live in Turkey now. And I am fully convinced that we can in the future continue the way we have proceeded in the past.

We had the chance to discuss issues pertaining to the Middle East and in addition to our bilateral relations it was important and necessary to evaluate the situation in the Middle East. We had the chance, somewhat briefly but nonetheless a chance to discuss relations between Syria and Israel and Israel and the Palestinians. And we have also focused more on Cyprus and we discussed what we can do to find the way towards a solution of the problem in Cyprus. And this was important because of the fact that the UK happens to be also one of the three guarantor countries when it comes to Cyprus. We have also discussed the nuclear programme of Iran and we agree that we would not want to see nuclear weapons in the region and that we would like to see a diplomatic solution to the issues at hand.

And let me end by saying how pleased I am to have received your hospitality and friendship from the moment we have arrived in your country. Thank you very much.

The first question was about the most recent decision by the Swedish parliament and the decision of Turkey to recall its ambassador. And today and earlier the Prime Minister of Sweden and the Foreign Minister have made statements and the question was whether or not the Prime Minister is satisfied with those statements made and whether or not Turkey now contemplates sending the ambassador back to Sweden.

And the second question, this morning when the Prime Minister was giving an interview, Mr Prime Minister, you said then that there are about 100,000 Armenians who are living illegally in Turkey and that you may consider deporting them if your goodwill is not well understood. What is the limit of your goodwill and what is the timing of such a decision, if you were to make such a decision?

I believe that the statements made by my friend, Prime Minister of Sweden Mr Reinfeldt, are very important. He has explained in his statement that such decisions taken by the parliament in Sweden are politicising historical events and issues and that he regrets to see that such decisions are being taken. He still also assures that the Swedish people have very positive views about the Turkish people, that there are many Turks living in Sweden and that they play a very important role in the development of Sweden. Prime Minister Reinfeldt also reiterated his support to Turkey and Turkey’s accession to the European Union. I believe that these are all very positive statements; when Prime Minister Reinfeldt called me on the telephone earlier he mentioned to me that he could be making such a statement, so that is indeed very important and I thank him for it.

With respect to your second question about Armenians living in Turkey, the figures are about 170,000, with 70,000 of them being citizens and about 100,000 being in Turkey not through legal means. Of course, any such decision as you refer to is not a decision that can be taken over night or that can be considered immediately at all because there have been many years that these people have been living in Turkey. What we will do is look at the developments and assess the situation accordingly.

In response to the question about bi-developments, do you mean developments between Turkey and Armenia or do you mean decisions taken by parliaments around the world about the issue?

Of course it is very important in this regard to understand that we have to see that the diaspora does not take the process of this effort hostage and that the means group does its duty. Because if the means group can carry on its duty then all of the issues and problems that we are talking about today will all be alleviated and that will mean that there will not be any problems in Turkey, nor will there be bilateral issues or problems between Turkey and Armenia, nor will there be issues and problems between Azerbaijan and Armenia.

A question for the British Prime Minister: what is your reaction to the assessment from the European Commission that Britain’s fiscal strategy over the medium-term should be more ambitious and that it should be more clearly spelt out in terms of reining in the deficit?

For the Turkish Prime Minister: you mentioned that you and Prime Minister Brown had discussed the Iranian nuclear issue, could you tell us exactly what is Turkey’s position on that at present and whether you see eye to eye on whether sanctions would be the right thing to move this issue forward? Thank you.

Let me be absolutely clear, we have the most ambitious plan of any of the advanced countries for reducing our deficit. We are going to cut our deficit by half over the next four years and we are setting out – as we have done in the pre-budget report and then in the budget – how we will do that to best effect. What we will not do is put the recovery at risk, and the European Commission is very clear that we should not have the fiscal stimulus removed until the recovery is assured. We will therefore make the best decisions for Britain, for British growth and for British jobs.

With regard to the nuclear programme on Iran, we have had a number of meetings and we continue to be engaged in very active discussions on that subject. We always say to all of our friends that we would not like to see any nuclear weapons in our region, and we are also in favour of taking a decision globally that would even go beyond a decision for the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. What we would like to see, in other words, is a world without nuclear weapons and, if this were the case, I believe that some of the issues that we are not always happy about would be resolved so much more quickly and efficiently.

What we definitely believe in is that, and we talked to our Iranian counterparts and we made the same assessment with them and the same warnings; we believe it is important to have a diplomatic solution to the problem. Sanctions have been imposed twice before, we have seen results – what has happened, in other words – and if it is considered to carry on with the sanctions a third time, we will see. What I will say is that what we need to do for a solution is be diplomatic, act diplomatically and find a diplomatic solution.

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Press conference with PM Erdogan

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