Dear Prime Minister Bulan Ecevit, - honourable guests!

Let me first of all Mr. Prime Minister, express my deepest sympathy for you and the Turkish people on the earthquake that this morning struck your country.

It is a pleasure for me as Minister of Culture to welcome you to Norway, and a trip on the Oslofjord. It is my privilege - to show you a little part of the Norwegian seaside and our long famous coastline! Fortunately, the weather is nice, and I hope we will spend some memorable hours together on the fjord!

As Minister of Culture, I am responsible for several fields which lend themselves good possibilities to international cooperation. I am Minister of sport and the media, where international communication is obvious. In that connection may I congratulate with your own football-team Galataseray winning the Europecup over Arsenal. With my background from the theatre, as actress and artistic and managing director, I also have a strong belief in the importance of international artistic and cultural exchange.

The basis of all cultural activity in Norway is the freedom of speech. May I in this context welcome your willingness to discuss the future lifting of restrictions on freedom of expression in Turkey. This issue has been put on the agenda and it is my impression that Turkey now is more open to discuss these questions than ever before. I sincerely hope that the process of opening up for a dialogue around these crucial questions will be continued – both with the government in Norway, and with other partners in Europe -I also have noted that you yourself have been in prison for your public expressions.

Turkey has a rich cultural heritage, and many great artists to be proud of. I have been to Turkey a few times myself, both as a tourist and as a professional – attending a film-festival in Istanbul.

Who will ever forget a film like Yol, The Road – a great film about the turkish people’s ways of living. It also made a great impression on me, when I visited one of the most famous ancient theatres in the world, at Efesos.

You also have many great story-tellers in Turkey, and several of your writers have been translated into Norwegian, such as Orhan Pamuk. I have noted that you yourself have a keen interest in poetry and that you even have been an author of poetry yourself. Your artists, film-makers, musicians and writers bring your culture closer to us, and we want to know more. Likewise, we would like your people to know more about the Norwegian art and culture!

But there is one special voice that I personally appreciate very much, and that is the poet Nazem Hikmet. Pablo Neruda pointed out Nazem Hikmet as one the most important poets of the 1900s, and very rightly so!

I will conclude my speech, with a poem of Nazem Hikmet, translated by myself. You must forgive me if this is very far from the original! But he wrote something along the following lines:

The most beautiful tree
has still not grown up –
The most beautiful sea
is what we still have not seen –
The most beautiful child –
is still not born –
and the most beautiful things I want to tell you –
is what I still have not said!

Again a warm welcome to all of you!