ISTANBUL - ''International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) Technical Cooperation Seminar'' has started at Istanbul's Radisson SAS Hotel on Monday.
Making the opening remark of the seminar hosted by the Ministry of Transportation, Transportation Minister Binali Yildirim said, ''I believe that such international meetings will improve the current level of the flight safety and aviation security in civil aviation by developing technical cooperation among member countries to the ICAO.''
''The seminar targets to clarify sources required by 188 ICAO members including Turkey to fulfill their membership responsibilities and commitments and to develop alternative methods in order to provide flight safety and aviation security by making plans to improve existing sources,'' he noted.
Stressing that the Ministry of Transportation had been paying careful attention to fulfill standards put forward by international organizations, especially ICAO, in civil aviation activities, Yildirim said, ''we, therefore, support the Universal Safety Oversight Audit Program of the ICAO.''
He emphasized, ''as transportation minister of a country which has suffered from terrorist acts for years and lost more than 30 thousand people in such acts, I believe that all necessary measures should be taken to provide security in air transportation against such terrorist acts. Meanwhile, I want to underline that Turkey will continue without any interruption to expend efforts to prevent all kinds of terrorists attacks. We have flight safety and aviation security in one hand. On the other hand, there are economy and tourism. We can give up none of them. Therefore, we should optimize all of these factors.''
''It is a well-known fact that air transportation has been living through a crisis recently due to reasons such as September 11th events, the war in Iraq and contagious diseases. In such an atmosphere, we should refrain from unnecessary implementations that can lead people to prefer other transportation methods. It is of great importance that measures should be acceptable and implementable. I believe that ICAO will guide its members with its decisions. Turkey is ready to join all kinds of cooperation under the leadership of ICAO to this end,'' he said.
Meanwhile, responding questions of reporters about the THY, Yildirim noted that the THY was planning a decrease in price of its tickets in the coming days. He refused to make any statement about rate of the decrease.
(UK-AÖ) 27.10.2003