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No. 79 February 2008

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President Abdullah Gül, accompanied by a delegation of Turkish businessmen and reporters, paid an official visit to Qatar on February 5-7 at the invitation of Emir Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani. Gül was welcomed by al-Thani at an official ceremony at Doha Airport. Qatari Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Hamad bin Jasim bin Jabir al-Thani, State Minister Abdallah bin Hamad al-Atiyah, and Turkey's Ambassador to Qatar Mithat Rende were also present. Gül met with Qatari Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani in Doha on February 6, where the two presided over meetings between delegations of the two countries.

PRIME MINISTER ERDOĞAN IN GERMANY Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan arrived on February 7 at an apartment building in Ludwigshafen, Germany where nine Turks had tragically died three days earlier. Nine people, including five children, were killed in the fire. The premier was accompanied by State Minister Said Yazıcıoğlu and Germany's Rhineland-Palatinate State Prime Minister Kurt Beck. During Erdoğan's visit, a group of local Turks gathered at a park in front of the building to protest the incident. Erdoğan also visited Turks injured in the blaze, and called for a thorough investigation. "Both the German police and the firefighters did their best to save lives in the disaster but we're expecting a thorough investigation," Erdoğan told a crowd gathered outside the apartment building. "Our grief is great; as a nation, our grief is great. But our German friends I've spoken to are also grieving," Erdoğan said.

EXPO 2015 İZMİR SECOND INTERNATIONAL SYMPOSIUM
The Aegean city of Izmir, the candidate city for Expo 2015 with theme "New routes to a Better World/Health For All," welcomed delegates of the Bureau of International Exhibits (BIE) at a symposium on February 14-15. A total of 95 delegates from 67 countries, including BIE Chairman Jean-Pierre Lafon and BIE Secretary General Vicente Loscartales, and nearly 300 guests attended the symposium. Lafon, Health Minister Recep Akdağ, former German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder, Izmir Governor Cahit Kıraç and Izmir Mayor Aziz Kocaoğlu delivered speeches at the symposium, the last international event before voting to choose the host city.

The 468th International Manisa Mesir Festival will be held on March 23, 2008 with the active participations foreign delegates from Germany Sweden, Hungary, Japan, China, Poland, Ukraine, Russia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Italy. In this international event as its first in 2006 with plans to repeat it in the coming years, some of the countries below participated by contributing something from their own country to add color to the festivities and make it a truly international event. According to a belief, the wife of the Ottoman Sultan Yavuz Sultan Selim and the mother of Kanuni Sultan Süleyman, known as Süleyman the Magnificent, Hafsa Sultan became ill while she was in Manisa.