Turkey’s President Abdullah Gul inaugurated Turkey’s Embassy and a Turkish Culture Center in the Kazakh capital Astana on Wednesday.
Delivering a speech in the inauguration ceremony, Gul said, “we are very happy because we are opening the new building of the Turkish embassy.”
Gul recalled that Turkey was the first country that recognized the independence of Kazakhstan.
Later Gul and Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev visited the International Exhibition of Arms and Military-Technical Equipment KADEX-2010 in Astana.
President Gul also met with Kazakh and Turkish businessmen over a luncheon.
Yunus Emre Culture Center, named after a 13th century Turkish poet and Sufi mystic, has become the fifth culture center opened abroad. Yunus Emre Foundation had earlier opened centers in Sarajevo, Tirana, Cairo and Skopje. The foundation plans to open new culture centers in Cologne, London, Moscow, Paris and Damascus this year.
President Gul also said that Yunus Emre Culture Center aims to keep Turkish language and culture alive, and also to spread it.
He said that Turkish culture prevailed in the Balkans and Central Asia, adding that these culture centers would help those who want to learn Turkish.
Following the inauguration ceremony, Gul also visited a Turkish-Kazakh high school in Astana.
Later, Gul departed from Kazakhstan to return home.
AA