Turkish Forum

Tag: Davutoglu

  • Turkish FM: Turkish Foreign Policy Should Not Be Assessed From A Single Frame

    Turkish FM: Turkish Foreign Policy Should Not Be Assessed From A Single Frame

    Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said that Turkish foreign policy should not be assessed from a single frame; a comprehensive process analysis should be made.

    301110 davutoglu5

    Speaking at U.S. think-tank organization Brookings Institute, Davutoglu said that the ruling Justice & Development (AK) Party tried to strengthen democracy, adding that they took NATO and the EU as references. He noted that political restoration could not reach a success without economic restoration.

    Turkey, with its new foreign policy, developed relations with all of its neighbors, said Davutoglu, and gave Turkish-Greek relations as an example. Davutoglu said that Turkey and Greece had signed only 35 agreements throughout their 87-year-old relations, but the two countries signed 22 agreements only in a single day in May, 2010.

    Noting that Turkey paid the price of instability or chaos milieu in surrounding regions, Davutoglu said that it was necessary to strengthen the peace and stability in the region, thus, Turkey should pursue an active foreign policy.

    We don’t want sanctions, isolations, commercial and visa limitations in our region, he said.

    Noting that Turkey had a foreign policy based on regional and global peace, Davutoglu said that Turkey would not be a side of any clash, but be a pawn of peace.

    Upon a question, Davutoglu said that Turkey would not have any uneasiness regarding the announcement of Wikileaks documents because Turkey’s foreign policy had principles, adding that Turkey was ready to open its all archives.

    Regarding Iran, Davutoglu said that Turkey was against proliferation of nuclear weapons, and supported peaceful nuclear capacity. He repeated that Turkey wanted stability and peace, not sanctions, in its region. He said that Turkey was exerting efforts to defend its national interest, not Iran or any other country.

    Commenting on Israeli relations, Davutoglu said that Turkey did not have any antisemitism stance throughout its history, stressing that Turkey’s history was very clean in relations with Jews.

    Israel, with its own policies, drew itself away from Turkey, he added.

    Regarding Armenian issue, Davutoglu said that Turks and Armenians had lived in peace for centuries, and there had been no tension between the two societies neither in Anatolia nor in any other place. He added that there were Armenian ministers and ambassadors during Ottoman period.

    Commenting on 1915 incidents, Davutoglu said that “a fair memory” was needed. He said that only “a short period of time” should not be taken into consideration.

    Noting that Turkey signed the protocols with Armenia based on three legs, Davutoglu said that those three legs were; normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia, normalization of relations between Turks and Armenians in all places of the world, and bringing stability to Caucasus. He added that those three legs should be implemented at the same time.

    We are still defending and not give up on the protocols, he said.

    AA

  • Ruben Melkonyan: The international community has understood Turkey’s slyness

    Ruben Melkonyan: The international community has understood Turkey’s slyness

    Anna Nazaryan

    “Radiolur”

    Ruben MelkonyanTurkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu as used the term “silent diplomacy” to describe the current stage of the Armenian-Turkish process.

    Expert of Turkish studies Ruben Melkonyan says this fits into Turkey’s policy of imitation.” “The international community has understood the slyness of our western neighbor,” he told a press conference today.

    “The ‘silent diplomacy’ is an amorphous conception and lacks specifics. At this moment the Turkish authorities benefit from avoiding specifics. This silent diplomacy allows Turkey to avoid concrete questions and responsibility,” Ruben Melkonyan said.

    via Public Radio of Armenia.

  • Erdoğan

    Erdoğan

    ERDOĞAN

    The prime minister of Turkey has made a policy, indeed a habit, indeed a rather nasty, sneaky habit, of listening to the private conversations of Turkish citizens. Accordingly, he has destroyed many reputations and killed many careers, all on the basis of circumstantial and ill-gotten evidence. He has done this under the guise of protecting the nation from terrorism. To that end, hundreds of those opposed to his regime have been jailed. Many have become seriously ill from their confinement, some have died. And many more live in fear wondering about just who is the terrorist.

    Now it is the prime minister’s turn. Wikileaks has lent more smoke to the fire of what has been well and widely known about the Turkish prime minister. Few aside from his most ardent supporters would quibble with the documentary descriptions of him as willful, arrogant, and harsh. And the dimensions of his newly gained wealth, and that of his loyal followers, and their children is of no surprise to anyone marginally alert and living in today’s Turkey. 

    One trademark of loud-mouthed bullies is that when they are confronted, physically or otherwise, they shut up. Tonight, in the face of a tidal wave of information indicating how corrupt and morally bankrupt he and his minions may be, the prime minister shut up. But his eager nation awaits and deserves a well-considered response. Perhaps when he returns from Libya after receiving the Distinguished Statesman Award from that distinguished statesman and humanitarian Moammar Gadhafi, a fellow leakee? Perhaps then the Turkish prime minister will bless the Turkish nation with his usual eloquence? Like that master of revenge, the Count of Monte Cristo, who summed up all human knowledge in three words, we “wait and hope.”  

    Cem Ryan
    Istanbul
    29 November 2010

  • Turkey’s Davutoglu visits US

    Turkey’s Davutoglu visits US

    WASHINGTON, United States — Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu kicked off a four-day visit to the United States on Saturday (November 27th) to discuss bilateral relations and regional issues. The foreign ministry announced that Davutoglu will meet with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, national security adviser Tom Donilon and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman John Kerry. (Xinhua, Anadolu news agency, World Bulletin – 27/11/10; AFP – 26/11/10)

    via Turkey’s Davutoglu visits US (SETimes.com).

  • US diplomats suggest Turkey’s Erdogan is ill informed – Monsters and Critics

    US diplomats suggest Turkey’s Erdogan is ill informed – Monsters and Critics

    Berlin – US diplomats believe Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan is ill-informed and advised by a foreign minister with little appreciation of politics outside Ankara, leaked cables claimed Sunday.

    In a summary of despatches dealing with Turkey, the German news magazine Der Spiegel said the Americans believed many leading figures in Erdogan’s ruling AKP party were members of a Muslim brotherhood.

    They reported that Erdogan mainly read the news from newspapers sympathetic to the Islamist movement and was surrounded by an iron ring of flattering but stuck-up advisers.’

    Other cables charged that Erdogan had promoted Islamic bankers into prominent positions and said Turkey’s leadership was feuding, according to the Spiegel summary.

    Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, the key contact for the US embassy in Ankara, was also criticized in the despatches, with diplomats saying he had a ‘neo-Ottoman’ vision and little awareness of what went on outside Ankara, according to Der Spiegel.

    It quoted a senior Turkish official who told a US diplomat in a chat that Davutoglu exercised Islamist influence on Erdogan and added about Davutoglu, ‘He’s dangerous.’

    The London newspaper The Guardian quoted cables that quoted Davutoglu giving a ‘spirited’ answer in November 2009 to visiting US Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon, who visited Ankara to ask Turkey not to meddle in diplomacy over Iran’s nuclear programme.

    The despatch said the US official warned of the danger to Turkey if Iran obtained a nuclear weapon.

    ‘Davutoglu gave a spirited reply, that ‘of course’ Turkey was aware of this risk. This is precisely why Turkey is working so hard with the Iranians,’ the cable said. ‘Only Turkey can speak bluntly and critically to the Iranians, Davutoglu contended.’

    However at talks in Paris, Gordon chided the French for blocking Turkish efforts to join the European Union.

    ‘Gordon said that Turkey was caught in a vicious cycle and it is not completing necessary reforms because the Turks do not believe that their EU candidacy will be allowed to progress,’ the cable said.

    via US diplomats suggest Turkey’s Erdogan is ill informed – Monsters and Critics.

  • Turkey first major nation to embrace one-state? « Antony Loewenstein

    Turkey first major nation to embrace one-state? « Antony Loewenstein

    The Israeli press is reporting the following and if true a very reasonable call from Ankara to not tolerate Zionist racism against Palestinians. After all, one-state is almost inevitable in the Middle East. One day:

    Israel will not be able to remain over time an independent country, and a bi-national state will be established on all of the area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River in which Jews and Palestinians will live,” said Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu in a number of meetings that he held with journalists and academics, including a number of Israeli academics.  Davutoglu’s vision, which he revisited a number of times, is for Turkey to become a dominant force in the Middle East and further, that it will be the protector state of the above-cited bi-national state within a number of years.

    via Turkey first major nation to embrace one-state? « Antony Loewenstein.