PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT OF NEWS CONFERENCE ON DEPARTURE FROM
ANKARA, TURKEY, 24 APRIL 1990
E 0 E PROOF ONLY
JOURNALIST: With only hours to go till the anniversary
landing or commemorating landing at Gallipoli, have you got
any further thoughts than those you've expressed to the
media and to the Australian public
PM: Well, except to say that now that I have been in Turkey
f or a day or so I am further reinforced in the admiration I
have for the way in which the Turkish authorities have gone
out of their way to ensure that this Australian pilgrimage
will be assisted in every possible way. It is quite clear
that our Turkish friends remember with the same sort of
admiration as we do, the valour, the heroism, the commitment
of the men from both sides who fought on Gallipoli 75 years
ago. And as I had the opportunity of pointing out in my
speech last night, it is something of a paradox, if you
like, that-the warm relations between our two countries at
the end of this century are founded in that conflict of
years ago and I think we remember with now a particular
sense of appreciation the way in which, after the end of
those hostilities, in the words of Kemal Ataturk, the
Australian men who died became regarded as the sons of
Turkey as their remains rested in the soil of Turkey. These
have been demonstrated to us to be much more than mere
words. They do reflect a deep feeling of the Turkish people
and they provide a bond between our two countries which is,
is unique.
JOURNALIST: Can I ask just one more question which is do
you find it a paradox and an irony that you've offered..
and tribute to the Turkish treatment to our veterans that
have returned, given the experience 75 years ago?
PM: It's the nature of war. I believe that, by definition,
if two countries are at war, they believe in their cause
and they are going to fight with total commitment to achieve
their ends and that will mean throwing everything that each
side has at the other and that involves no compromise. But
if you regard those against whom you've fought as having
been both capable and of having fought with integrity, then
once that war is over, then the interests of the nations
concerned and the people of those nations is going to be
best served by trying to work in the future for cooperation
so that war will no longer be necessary. I think that we
have made it quite clear as we are prepared to come to you
on this pilgrimage, that we haven't come to glorify war and
nor would we ever seek to do that. What we are doing is to
pay homage to those who were prepared to pay and indeed so
many of whom did pay, the supreme sacrifice, so that
succeeding generations would have the opportunity of living
in peace and that's the importance of this visit because
those men on both sides died for what they believed to be
right and, in a sense, I think they fought in the hope that
in the future, war would not be necessary. Of course the
events of the generation after 1915 proved that that hope
was, at that time, in vain. But I think now there is an
increasing realisation around the world that war is even
more unthinkable now than it was then, but the instruments
of destruction are such that you could never limit war to
those immediately involved. But war today carries with it
the possibility of the annihilation of mankind as we know it
from the planet, so when we think about these battles of the
past I think we remember even more fully than perhaps ever
before the futility of war. And it's been very reassuring
to us in our discussions with our friends here in Turkey to
understand that their thinking is the same as ours in that
respect. ends
0