ANTALYA - The Stage Project: Third Ministerial Colloquy started in southern Antalya province on Thursday.
The Council of Europe's (COE) colloquy will continue till September 20 at Antalya's Talya Hotel.
Addressing the opening of the colloquy, Culture and Tourism Minister Erkan Mumcu said that he believed that peace and stability between Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia would contribute to both regional peace and world peace.
Stating that there were also some problems in Caucasus region, Mumcu said that development of cultural cooperation would be the most important factor to overcome those problems.
Mumcu said that Stage Project supported formation of culture policies of Azerbaijan, Georgia and Armenia and added that peoples of those countries could know better each other thanks to this project.
''Turkey will continue to exert efforts to leave immovable cultural heritages to generations of the future by protecting them and it will also continue to exert efforts for further development of cultural cooperation,'' Mumcu stated.
Mumcu recalled that Mosaic project which was similar to the Stage Project was put into practice successfully in some Southeastern European countries and stated that those kinds of projects provided opportunities for overcoming problems, establishing modern relations between state, NGOs and culture sector and also developing cooperation between regional countries.
Mumcu said that Turkey had joint cultural ties with countries taking part in the Stage Project.
The Third Ministerial Colloquy of the three South Caucasus countries participating in the STAGE Project: Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, and of the observer countries: Greece, Russia, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine will be held in Antalya province till September 20.
(EÖ-AÖ) 18.09.2003