Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, I have a habit of liking to see the audience that I am addressing. … .
May I thank you first for your kind words, your hospitality today and the making possible my visit to Istanbul? I well remember the occassion when you came to No 10 Downing Street and invited me to visit your city and I was determined from that moment to take up this invitation and I am delighted to be the first British Prime Minister to come here on an official visit.
And what a remarkable city you have; twenty-eight centuries of recorded history, the heart of three successive empires, the seat of ninety-seven Latin and Byzantine Emperors and of thirty Sultans, twenty-two times besieged but hardly ever captured. How marvellous! I wish I could stay longer but our Parliament meets again on Tuesday and I have to be back again in London. But even so I am seeing many of Istanbul's glories—ancient and modern.
This morning I crossed the Bosphorus to visit the military cemetary at Uskudar—a most moving occasion—and saw the field hospital where Florence Nightingale nursed wounded troops during the Crimean war.
This afternoon I shall be seeing the Topkapi Palace and the Aya Sofia—testimony to Turkey's great cultural riches. [end p1]
My tour this morning brought home to me how important a part water—the water of the straits—has played in Istanbul's history and prosperity. More than four hundred years ago, the Bosphorus was described as the key which opens and closes two worlds, and so it remains today despite two great bridges soon to be followed by another.
I know, my Lord Mayor, that you have made it a particular task to clean up the Golden Horn; indeed you have said you intend to make it as blue as your eyes. I wish you every success in achieving that.
This afternoon I shall be visiting one of the largest water treatment plants in the world at Yerikapi; a project in which British companies are playing a major part.
But you are proud of your city not just for its history but as a dynamic and expanding centre of your country's remarkable economic renewal. I know that many whom you have invited today are responsible for Turkey's commercial and economic success and I am delighted to meet them and hear first hand about it.
We in Britain also know something about economic success. It does not just happen. It has to be earned. The key to our economic successes in Britain has been getting the fundamentals right. The first thing we had to do was to remind people that Government on its own cannot create wealth, that the state is not the engine of economic growth, that that is something that only individuals and companies can do. The Government's role is to set the economic and political framework by pursuing sound and consistent policies and then to leave the enterprising and wealth creators to get on with [end p2] the job.
So we have steadily applied certain fundamental principles and have stuck to them even when times were very difficult, like making sound money and low inflation our top priority, by keeping Government spending down to a level the country can afford, like encouraging enterprise by giving incentives to those with initiative and cutting out bureaucracy and red tape. This has had two very important results. First people's whole attitude has been changed. They no longer think that Government is about detailed control and regulation; they now see that it is about giving greater freedom, the transferring of many decisions as possible from the state to individual people, companies and other groups, always remembering that freedom incurs responsibility both towards the family and towards the community.
The second result is that we have been able to break the sterile circle of high taxes and low incentives which meant less wealth for all and which held us back for too long. The incentives given by lower taxes for all have brought home and brought about the growth leading to both a higher standard of living and a better standard of public services. The result? Greater prosperity not just for a few people but at every level.
And so, my Lord Mayor, we want to build on that record of success as well as the remarkable achievement of Prime Minister Özal in Turkey to increase trade and investment in Turkey.
Many companies are already investing here, many companies from Britain. But the investment climate must be right if that is to continue. Safeguards for investment and intellectual property [end p3] rights including patents and copyrights are important. People will not want to invest unless they are sure that they will get fair treatment and a fair return.
Our trade is not doing badly. Last year Turkey's exports to Britain rose by 42%; and we are now your fifth most important market. From our side the increase is only 18%; and we want to improve on that and that is one reason why we are sending an unprecedentedly large number of trade missions to Turkey this year.
You, my Lord Mayor, met members of a high level mission from the Confederation of British Industry during their visit to Istanbul last month and in October, His Royal Highness the Duke of Gloucester will lead a delegation of senior British consultancy firms. And we welcome Turkey's business visitors too. Mr Özal will be opening a major Turkish exhibition at the Barbican in London later this month which we hope will be a great success.
I believe that British firms are very well placed to win major projects in Turkey. Indeed I was inundated with letters from them before this visit telling me about their hopes and prospects in Turkey.
I attended the Ground Breaking Ceremony for the Ankara Natural Gas Project yesterday in which British firms have major participants. This afternoon I shall be visiting Landrover, one of the many joint ventures here in which British firms are involved.
But there is still much more we could do. Britain is now a leader in many high technology fields. Our defence industries are good and we feel that this is an area in which we can work together and do much more than we do at present and we have quite a [end p4] reputation for bridge-building too.
My Lord Mayor, there is one further subject I want to mention. I know that many of you are directly involved in Turkey's economic and business life, have a particular interest in the future of Turkey's relations with the European Community. That is perfectly natural and understandable. The European Community is a market economy. That is to say it is based on the belief that economic freedom is not only the way to a higher standard of living but also the best way of ensuring and sustaining political freedom. I spoke about Turkey's application in my speech at the Turgut ÖzalPrime Minister's dinner last night and I shall not repeat it all now but there are two points that I do want to make. First Turkey's Association Agreement with the European Community is there but much more could be done to make it work better and I promise you that Britain will be looking very closely at ways to achieve this starting with this month's meeting of the Association at council in Brussels.
And second, we understand very well your wish in the context of Turkey's steady progress towards a closer involvement with all the main European institutions to go beyond the Association Agreement to full membership of the European Community.
Turkey's application is in and the Commission of the European Community are now preparing their opinion in the usual way. It is a normal and correct procedure. It is bound to take time. The issues are complex and it is not in either side's interests to rush consideration of them—When the Commission have reached their agreement it will go to the twelve member states for discussion and I cannot [end p5] predict what the outcome will be, but the more that Turkey and the European Community get used to working closely with each other through the Association Agreement, the better. I can assure you that Britain will continue to give full weight to the long history of our relations with Turkey through our many common interests and to the fact that we are already partners in so many common endeavours. That partnership is long-standing and we want it to continue.
My Lord Mayor, let me thank you once again for your hospitality. I am looking forward very much to the tour of your great city that lies ahead this afternoon. I regard this occasion today as a very important part of my visit. I want it to lead to a really substantial increase in trade and in economic cooperation between Turkey and Great Britain because I believe that that is in both our interests. So may I, my Lord Mayor, ask you all to rise and drink a toast to the great and historic city of Istanbul, to its outstanding Lord Mayor, flourishing relations of every kind between Britain and Turkey.