Mr. Muharrem Yılmaz, President of the Board of Directors of TÜSİAD made a statement following his talks in Ankara

A TÜSİAD delegation headed by Mr. Muharrem Yılmaz, President of the Board of Directors of TÜSİAD held talks in Ankara, on April 10th-12th 2013.

The delegation met with the President Abdullah Gül on April 10th, 2013. The delegation held talks also with Mr. Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, Chairman of the Republican People's Party (CHP), Mr. Devlet Bahçeli, Chairman of the Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and Mr. Beşir Atalay, Deputy Prime Minister.

The talks continued on April 12th, 2013 and the delegation visited Mr. Cemil Çiçek, Speaker of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey (TBMM), Mr. Selahattin Demirtaş, Co-President of the Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), and Mr. Nabi Avcı, Minister of National Education.

Following the Ankara talks, Mr. Muharrem Yılmaz, President of the Board of Directors of TÜSİAD made the following statement:

“In spite of the global economic crisis, Turkey performed well and achieved significant growth rates in 2010 and 2011. The growth rate of the year of 2012 was a little lower than expected. However we are anticipating a growth rate over 4% for this year. During the talks we emphasized the necessity of continuing macroeconomic stability and financial discipline. We also underlined the importance of micro reforms for the sustainability of our competitiveness and growth performance.

“A strong economy requires a strong democracy. Turkey has the opportunity to achieve both. From the day of the establishment of the Constitutional Conciliation Committee of the TBMM, we look forward in hope for a modern civil constitution.

“TÜSİAD believes that the new constitution should be based on three fundamental principles. We have to create a new constitution which guarantees the fundamental rights and liberties, adopts the separation of power emphasizing the judicial independence, and realize the fairness in representation. We believe that the solution process to cleanse Turkey from the violence and terrorism is crucial. If Turkey will be able to conclude this process, as we wish, with a modern constitution based on these three principles and a broad consensus, we may be sure that the future of Turkey has great prospects.”