President Gül,
Madame Director-General,
Distinguished heads of state and government,
Distinguished hosts,
Excellencies,
Ladies and gentlemen,
 
It is my great privilege and pleasure to participate for the first time as President of the Republic of Croatia at the cultural summit of countries in the region, held this year in the millennial city of Istanbul, ancient hub of cultures of the East and the West, and European Capital of Culture 2010. Indeed, is there a better place for discussion on the theme of this year’s “Cultural Corridors”, that is, “Music as Metaphor of Cultural Dialogue”?
 
As a musician and composer discharging since recently the office of President of the Republic, I certainly find the topic close to my heart since I have been dealing with it almost all my life. But, of course, in a different way. I admit that I would find it much easier to talk about music with music and notes rather than words. And I believe that you would even then understand me quite well, if not better.
 
Because music is indeed universal, and its force breaks down all linguistic, political and civilization barriers. Music is understood by everybody in all the different parts of the world and it arouses similar feelings in everybody. Music has for centuries created cultural bridges between states and nations even when they were at  war and on opposing sides.
 
The best proof of that is the fact that even during the latest bloody and unnecessary war in the former Yugoslavia people continued to listen to music performed by musicians and singers on both sides of the border even if their governments had no political relations.
 
Most of the artists and musicians fostered their mutual friendly relations in times when that seemed to be impossible, and as soon as the war ended they were the first to open the door to cooperation between the recently warring sides. I have myself taken part in major musical projects with fellow musicians from the whole region.
 
Even in times of the greatest war danger musicians from the whole world came to play and hold concerts in Croatia in order to offer in this way moral support to Croatian citizens and draw the attention of the world to the war tribulations.
 
It is through music, first as a student and then as a professor, that I acquired many friends and met many like-minded people on the international scene, and as the long-standing director of Zagreb’s well-known Biennale, a musical event of great international renown, which promoted intercultural dialogue from the very beginning, I understood that there was a tie between music and politics. That was precisely the theme of the twenty-fifth Zagreb Biennale last year.
 
Of course, the theme was not chosen at random. As a politician, but also as a musician, I understood that, after the post-war crisis in South-eastern Europe was overcome, that a new, economic crisis was coming, a crisis which swept almost the whole world. With the onset of that crisis society has become intensively politicized. In Croatia, in the region and in Europe. The time before us will be a period of renewed stock-taking of many social values. In that period art will again have to provide its own contribution with its humane messages. I am convinced that in a time distinguished by  moral crisis, economic collapse, loss of jobs and general resignation prevailing in many countries it is precisely music that can best convey messages of peace, cooperation, non-violence, social justice and optimism.
 
As regards countries in the region, as President of the Republic of Croatia I shall repeat a message I have recently sent out as a musician: politicians certainly need to follow the example of artists and condemn all the evil policies in the period of national insanity and war in the former Yugoslavia, and the leaders who implemented them, and work instead, for the sake of the future, in the interest of the vast majority of ”normal people” who were not blinded by such policies and were not imbued with hate. In that respect music can also help them in the future just as it can help us to return together to the cultural sphere to which we all belong, the sphere of the European family.