ANKARA - National Education Minister Huseyin Celik said on Saturday that Turkey allocated a very small amount of money to research and development, adding Turkey had to take very serious initiatives in that regard.
Huseyin Celik who attended the EU Sixth Framework Programme meeting on Scientific Cooperation, Research and Development, held a news conference in his arrival in Ankara.
Noting that European Union (EU) determined a target after its Lisbon summit in March, 2000, Celik said according to that target all EU members should allocate 3 percent of their Gross National Product to research and development activities until 2010. Recalling that Turkey was a member of EU Research field since 1993, Celik said that ministers of 13 candidate countries attended the meeting. Celik stated that the performance of the 13 candidate countries was evaluated in the meeting, adding that he gave information about the studies of Turkey.
Celik said that he also had bilateral meetings with ministers. Noting that Turkey had to take significant initiatives in 2004 in the field of research and development, Celik said ''particularly European research field should be known well in Turkey and projects to be sent there had to be prepared well.''
Celik said that it was necessary to attribute importance to research and development institutions for Turkey's taking its place in EU together with other candidate countries. He added that unfortunately Turkey allocated very small amount of money and source to research and development activities when compared with other countries and it was necessary to speed up activities.
When asked the views of candidate countries about the bomb attacks in Turkey, Celik said that the people whom he met expressed their sorrow and offered condolences.
When a reporter reminded the attitude of Britain, Celik said that European countries should be very sensitive about this issue as each step of them could encourage terrorism.
(GC-Öª) 29.11.2003