President Gul returns from New York

Returning to Turkey on Sunday after attending the 68th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, President Abdullah Gul held a press conference at Esenboga Airport in Ankara. Evaluating his visit to the US, Gul said, "I believe that it has been very useful in terms of expressing our foreign policy priorities to our counterparts at the highest level as well as to the world public opinion; and showing the business, finance and investment potentials that Turkey provides." President Gul told reporters that his visit yielded two concrete results for Turkey. One of these concrete results is that Istanbul will host the first World Humanitarian Summit which will take place in 2016 and the second one is the agreement to move the United Nations Development Programme's (UNDP) regional bureau in Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States to Istanbul. Also referring to his speech at the UN General Assembly, Gul said, "I underlined the need for reform in the UN system in order to ensure that the Security Council is truly democratic, representative, effective, and accountable." Turkey was represented at the 68th session of the United Nations General Assembly by a delegation led by President Gul and consisting of Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, Family and Social Policy Minister Fatma Sahin and Development Minister Cevdet Yilmaz.