Queen Beatrix has praised Turkey’s “great past” and the important role Turkey has played in the region and in the world. “Your country is a stable factor in a turbulent region in which existing powers and relations are constantly being challenged,” the queen told President Abdullah Gül. “To many your country is an inspiration and an example.”

Beatrix gave her speech during a state banquet in the Royal Palace on Dam Square in the centre of Amsterdam. The Turkish president and his wife Hayrünissa began a thee-day state visit to the Netherlands on Tuesday morning. After being welcomed, he laid a wreath at the war monument on the square. Hundreds of people, many of them Turkish immigrants living in the Netherlands turned out to see the president.

The visit marks 400 years of diplomatic relations between the two countries. Queen Beatrix pointed out that in spite of the “four centuries behind us, a period in which armed conflicts have exhausted our part of the world, relations between our two countries have always been peaceful.”

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RNW