HANS M. TIMBREMONT Consul General of Belgium In İstanbul
We Are Definitely Looking Forward To Getting To Know The Many Things Turkey Has To Offer
	Being posted to Istanbul for me means becoming reacquainted with an old friend I had come to admire and appreciate during my frequent visits during the early nineties. In those days, I was posted to Sofia and Istanbul was very much the preferred destination for a weekend break with friends and family amongst the expat community in Bulgaria.
It was at the time when Istanbul had put forward its candidature to host the Olympic games and the city was full of posters with the slogan ‘Let’s meet where the continents meet’. Ever since learning that my wife and I would be lucky enough to spend the next 3 to 4 years here, I have been using just that phrase to encourage my friends to come and visit us. Apart from the obvious touristic aspect – by the way, Turkey attracted nearly half a million visitors from Belgium last year, out of a population of 10 million – there are many reasons why Istanbul deserves the level of interest it has been getting from Belgian side. The start of the accession negotiations to the EU certainly takes first place: as founding member state and host to several key EU institutions, Belgium supported unequivocally the start of the negotiations on 3 October. I look forward to make my own modest but sincere contribution to the success of this process. The Belgian presence is quite important and varied – ranging from culture to commerce – and goes back to the first days of our independence. Because of this we are fortunate to have the ‘Palais de Belgique’, originally the Legation of Belgium to the Sublime Porte, situated in the heart of historical Istanbul. I am very pleased that the necessary funds will soon become available to renovate the building, restore its former glory and at the same time, modernise and rationalise the available office space. This should allow us to receive all visitors in a comfortable and agreeable way. This will also mean that we may have to spend a few months a hotel whilst the renovations are being carried out, but I have no doubt the end result will have been worth the wait. The intensity of our bilateral relations is best illustrated by the many mixed marriages amongst our 400 strong Belgian community in Istanbul, by the intensity of their contacts with Belgium and the strong integration with the Belgian commercial presence worldwide. Istanbul is the latest stop in a tour of postings which started for me at the Belgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the late eighties, followed by postings to Sofia, Skopje, London, another stint at the Ministry in the WTO department and finally Beijing as Minister-Counsellor. My wife, Janine, is also a – Luxembourg – diplomat and we were very fortunate to be posted to the same cities by our respective ministries in the case of London and Beijing. For Istanbul this turned out to be impossible, so, my wife has had to take a few years leave this time. We are definitely looking forward to getting to know the many things Turkey has to offer. We have already been won over unconditionally by the warm and generous welcome we have received by the many Turkish friends we have met so far. My wife is already taking Turkish language courses and as soon as our car is cleared through customs, we intend to use the weekends to venture further out into Turkey to explore the many historic sites and places of natural beauty.