RIYADH, 6 March 2008 — As part of an effort to boost Saudi-Turkish cooperation in the tourism and culture sector, Prince Sultan ibn Salman, secretary general of the Supreme Commission for Tourism (SCT), and Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism Ertugrul Gunay signed an agreement here yesterday.
“This accord with a mandate to promote tourism relation between Riyadh and Ankara is the continuation of the excellent ties between the two countries,” said Prince Sultan, after inking the accord.
“We are following up and working within the framework of the agreements that were reached during the two very successful visits of the Custodian of the Two Mosques King Abdullah to Turkey recently.”
Several Saudi and Turkish officials, including Turkish Ambassador Naci Koru and Ibrahim Yazar, assistant director general of Turkish Ministry of Culture and Tourism, also attended the signing ceremony of the pact called “Agreement for Promoting Tourism and Cultural Relations.” Spelling out the features of agreement, the SCT chief said: “The mandate of the agreement will cover investment in tourism sector, program development, antiquities and heritage development. So this will be a major accord for us...we have been benefited by the Turkish experience and the best practices adopted by Turkey in these sectors.”
Speaking on his part, Turkish minister Gunay, who also delivered a speech at Janadariya’s opening ceremony yesterday, said: “The two countries had forged closer relation in all sectors.” He added that a Turkish tourism office was also opened in Riyadh yesterday to promote relations in the tourism sector.
“This tourism office will help to boost tourism traffic between the two countries,” he said. “This number is not sufficient,” said the minister, while referring to Turkey’s presence in Janadariya festival this year. He said that the festival would feature some fine contemporary Turkish handicrafts, products, folklore dances and movies.
“More than 100 Turkish artists will showcase their products such as ceramics, old calligraphy, glassworks, marbling, weaving, nacre, wood and silver artistic works,” he said.
“Moreover, traditional folkloric dances reflecting the cultural variety of different regions of Turkey will be performed by Turkish folkloric dancers during the festival,” said the minister. In fact, the folk poetry tradition in Turkish literature has been strongly influenced by the Islamic traditions. “The development of folk poetry in Turkish began to emerge in the 13th century with such important writers as Yunus Emre, Sultan Veled, and Seyyad Hamza. These poetical compositions have similarities with Saudi and Arab poetry in some sense”, said the minister.
