Yunus Emre Institute's “The Voice of 1000 Years: Turkish Festival” event was held in Ülker Sports Arena.

Çavuşoğlu made a speech in “The Voice of 1000 Years: Turkish Language Festival” organized by Yunus Emre Enstitüsü. Çavuşoğlu pointed that diplomatic activities and foreign policies in Turkey and the world are not carried out only by bureaucrats serving in Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Çavuşoğlu expressed that they have integrated numerous institutions, as parliament leading, into diplomacy with the values and soft power of Turkey. Çavuşoğlu said, “Our goal is to make our glorious flag wave all over the world. Today Turkey is the 5^th country in the world with 230 representation offices abroad, thanks to this approach. We aim to open representation offices in 241 countries until the end of this year.”

Çavuşoğlu remarked that they aim to reach various institutions worldwide not only via embassies and consulates, and continued his speech as follows:

“Turkish Airlines fly to 293 world capitals with 300 airplanes. Today we do not only contribute to Turkey's development with TIKA. We support development projects to lend a hand to aggrieved countries worldwide. Kızılay supplies humanitarian aid all over the world, as courtesy of Turkish society. Our presidency abroad offers scholarships to thousands of students from various countries to ensure they receive an education, and Yunus Emre Cultural Centres teach our beautiful language, our customs and conventions. All our institutions work day and night to improve Turkey's global reputation.”

Çavuşoğlu underlined that with Diplomacy Academy, Ministry of Foreign Affairs creates internship opportunities for the youth worldwide, and get a chance to explain the achievements of Turkish diplomacy. Çavuşoğlu also added that they are proud of Yunus Emre Enstitüsü's activities abroad.

Expressing that Yunus Emre's motto “We love the created for the Creator's sake” is needed more than ever today, Çavuşoğlu said, “Today we watched beautiful representations of love and peace language here. In fact today in the world, we need peace and language of peace more than ever. As racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia rises each day, we need tolerance and a peace language. This is what we try to achieve in Yunus Emre Cultural Centres.”

Çavuşoğlu completed his speech as follows: “I am a member of board of trustees and very happy to be part of Yunus Emre Enstitüsü's event held under auspices of President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. I am also glad to have participated in such an event on such a day where we bring together the youth who receive training in Yunus Emre Enstitü's schools worldwide.”

Minister of Culture and Tourism Ömer Çelik stated that in order to come up with solutions to humanity's common universal problems, peace must prevail against violence and prosperity against poverty. Çelik said, “The best way to express the culture and ideal of Turkey is through teaching our language, Turkish.”

Minister Çelik made a speech in “Sound of 1000 Years Turkish Festival” organized by Yunus Emre Enstitüsü, and remarked that states redefine their roles in the international system.

Çelik underlined that as overseas organizations are restructured, diplomacy transforms as well. Çelik said, “As our diplomatic activities expand, activities of institutions in cultural diplomacy field are restructured accordingly. We wish to make the voice of our nation and state to be heard all over the world, and promote our cultural diplomacy approach.”

Minister Çelik continued: “We are heard more and more each day thanks to our institutions abroad. Especially in this period where terror organization ISIS harms values using symbols of our sacred religion, and defiles religion and our region us making our humanism, our Turkish language heard with a figure such as Yunus Emre under the roof of this institution contains significant messages.”

Çelik noting that the domain of diplomacy expands each day, continued:

“Our cultural centers which enable establishing good relations by teaching and surviving our culture, customs and language, are true sources of pride. Using a language abroad positively contributes to diplomatic activities of the respective country, enables social dialogue through language instruction, and creates a wide platform. The best way to express the culture and ideal of Turkey is to teach our language, Turkish. This is central in our cultural diplomacy. In line with making Turkish language widespread, we make our voice heard with Turkish Cultural Centers in 34 countries.”

Çelik remarked that Turkish citizens living abroad sustain stable economic and trade relations which make significant influence, and Turkey pays efforts to contribute in common peace humanity longs for. Çelik continued his speech as follows:

“We would like to say that our efforts to come up with solutions to common universal problems of humanity, and to make prosperity prevail against poverty, are outcomes of the cultural wealth we possess. Social and cultural bonds established with another country constitute a solid ground for cooperation in all fields. We are fortunate in this respect for our ancestors ruled with tolerance for centuries, and this enables us to open centers with sound bases. This allows us to start organizations with solid foundations as well.”

Minister Çelik expressed that he was glad to be a guest in the event. He said Yunus Emre's humanism did not contain discrimination based on race, religion and sect and he looked equally on everyone, and it is of importance for the institute to fully adopt Yunus Emre's philosophy and operate with the same approach.

Minister of National Education Nabi Avcı, Minister of Culture and Tourism Ömer Çelik, Minister of Environment and Urbanization İdris Güllüce, AK Party General Vice President Ekrem Erdem and a large number of guests attended the event.